title: Persistence-length renormalization of polymers in a crowded environment of hard disks.
abstract: The most conspicuous property of a semiflexible polymer is its persistence length, defined as the decay length of tangent correlations along its contour. Using an efficient stochastic growth algorithm to sample polymers embedded in a quenched hard-disk fluid, we find apparent wormlike chain statistics with a renormalized persistence length. We identify a universal form of the disorder renormalization that suggests itself as a quantitative measure of molecular crowding.
authors.affiliation: Universität Leipzig, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schöbl
authors.affiliation: Universität Leipzig, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sturm
authors.affiliation: Universität Leipzig, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Janke
authors.affiliation: Universität Leipzig, Institut für Theoretische Physik, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kroy
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000737:chemistry; D001704:Biopolymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009124:Muscle Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000199:Actins; D001704:Biopolymers; D009124:Muscle Proteins; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011108:Polymers; D004247:DNA