title: The average shape of the closed trefoil knot fluctuating on a floppy rope.
abstract: The average shape of the trefoil knot tied on a floppy, hard rope subject to thermal fluctuations has been determined. The fluctuations of the shape of knots were performed by random bending. As a result of the changing shape procedure large sets of deformed conformations of the initial knot were obtained. Afterwards, these sets were subject to the shape-fitting procedure. It has been found that the conformation is different from the ideal conformation of the knot.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Physics, Poznan University of Technology, Nieszawska 13A, 60-965, Poznan, Poland. Marcin.Modlinski@doctorate.put.poznan.pl
authors.forename: Marcin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Modlinski
authors.forename: Sylwester
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Przybyl
authors.forename: Piotr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pieranski