The shape of a flexible polymer in a cylindrical pore.
We calculate the mean end-to-end distance R of a self-avoiding polymer encapsulated in an infinitely long cylinder with radius D. A self-consistent perturbation theory is used to calculate R as a function of D for impenetrable hard walls and soft walls. In both cases, R obeys the predicted scaling behavior in the limit of large and small D. The crossover from the three-dimensional behavior (D --> infinity) to the fully stretched one-dimensional case (D --> 0) is nonmonotonic. The minimum value of R is found at D approximately 0.46R(F), where R(F) is the Flory radius of R at D --> infinity. The results for soft walls map onto the hard wall case with a larger cylinder radius.
Morrison
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Biophysics Program, Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Thirumalai
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D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*
D011108:Polymers