Fractons in proteins: can they lead to anomalously decaying time autocorrelations?
Motivated by recent studies on the fractal nature of folded proteins, we analyze the time-dependent autocorrelation function < x (-->)(t).x(-->)(0) >of the distance between two points on a thermally vibrating fractal. Using fractons, the vibrational excitations of a fractal, we show that for both strongly underdamped and overdamped vibrations this correlation function decays anomalously, displaying a crossover from a nearly stretched exponential decay at short times to a slow algebraic decay at long times. Relationship to single molecule experiments is discussed.
Granek
Rony
R
Department of Biotechnology Engineering and NIBN, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Klafter
Joseph
J
D017709:Fractals; D008956:Models, Chemical; D017510:Protein Folding; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
D011506:Proteins