Probability distributions for polymer translocation.
We study the passage (translocation) of a self-avoiding polymer through a membrane pore in two dimensions. In particular, we numerically measure the probability distribution Q(T) of the translocation time T, and the distribution P(s,t) of the translocation coordinate s at various times t. When scaled with the mean translocation time T , Q(T) becomes independent of polymer length, and decays exponentially for large T. The probability P(s,t) is well described by a Gaussian at short times, with a variance of s that grows subdiffusively as talpha with alpha approximately 0.8. For times exceeding T , P(s,t) of the polymers that have not yet finished their translocation has a nontrivial stable shape.
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Clément
C
Chatelain
Yacov
Y
Kantor
Mehran
M
Kardar