title: The force acting on a polymer partially confined in a tube.
abstract: We consider the force acting on a polymer part of whose length is configurationally confined in a tube and the rest of which is free. This situation arises in many different physical contexts, including a flexible synthetic polymer partially confined in a nanopore and a stiff viral genome partially ejected from its capsid. In both cases the force acting to pull the chain molecule out of its confinement is argued to be constant once a few persistence lengths are "free"/"outside". We present Brownian dynamics simulations that confirm the constancy of the force for different chain lengths and illustrate the dependence of the force on the strength of tube confinement. Experimental results are reported for genome ejection from viral capsids, from which we estimate the pulling force to be a few tenths of a piconewton.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Prinsen
authors.forename: Li Tai
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Aron M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Yoffe
authors.forename: Charles M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Knobler
authors.forename: William M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Gelbart
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D008956:Models, Chemical; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers