title: Resonant activation in polymer translocation: new insights into the escape dynamics of molecules driven by an oscillating field.
abstract: The translocation of molecules across cellular membranes or through synthetic nanopores is strongly affected by thermal fluctuations. In this work we study how the dynamics of a polymer in a noisy environment changes when the translocation process is driven by an oscillating electric field. An improved version of the Rouse model for a flexible polymer has been adopted to mimic the molecular dynamics, by taking into account the harmonic interactions between adjacent monomers and the excluded-volume effect by introducing a Lennard-Jones potential between all beads. A bending recoil torque has also been included in our model. The polymer dynamics is simulated in a two-dimensional domain by numerically solving the Langevin equations of motion. Thermal fluctuations are taken into account by introducing a Gaussian uncorrelated noise. The mean first translocation time of the polymer centre of inertia shows a minimum as a function of the frequency of the oscillating forcing field. This finding represents the first evidence of the resonant activation behaviour in the dynamics of polymer translocation.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica e Tecnologie Relative, Group of Interdisciplinary Physics, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, edificio 18, I-90128 Palermo, Italy. npizzolato@gip.dft.unipa.it
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pizzolato
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fiasconaro
authors.forename: D Persano
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Adorno
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Spagnolo
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D008956:Models, Chemical; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D009991:Oscillometry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers