Self-avoiding flexible polymers under spherical confinement.
We compute the free energy of confinement for a flexible self-avoiding polymer inside a spherical cavity. Accurate numerical results allow us to arbitrate between three competing scaling predictions. For moderate confinement, the free energy exhibits a power-law dependence on cavity size that is different from what is observed for planar and cylindrical confinement. At high monomer concentrations, crossover to a different scaling regime is observed, consistent with the screening of the excluded-volume interactions. We demonstrate how our findings lead to a revised prediction for the escape time of a polymer from a spherical confinement.
Cacciuto
Angelo
A
Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
Luijten
Erik
E