title: Dynamics of DNA melting.
abstract: The dynamics of loops at the DNA denaturation transition is studied. A scaling argument is used to evaluate the asymptotic behavior of the autocorrelation function of the state of complementary bases (either open or closed). The long-time asymptotic behavior of the autocorrelation function is expressed in terms of the entropy exponent, c, of a loop. The validity of the scaling argument is tested using a microscopic model of an isolated loop and a toy model of interacting loops. This suggests a method for measuring the entropy exponent using single-molecule experiments such as fluorescence correlation spectroscopy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bar
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kafri
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mukamel