Simulations of Two-Dimensional Unbiased Polymer Translocation Using the Bond Fluctuation Model

TL;DR

This study uses the Bond Fluctuation Model to investigate polymer translocation in 2D, revealing finite-size effects and monomer mobility suppression that challenge previous scaling assumptions and support the theoretical exponent $eta=2+ u$.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that longer BFM simulations do not support the previously assumed scaling law and introduces modifications to address monomer mobility suppression.

Findings

Finite-size effects influence scaling behavior.

Monomer mobility near the pore is heavily suppressed.

Modified BFM increases the apparent scaling exponent.

Abstract

We use the Bond Fluctuation Model (BFM) to study the pore-blockade times of a translocating polymer of length $N$ in two dimensions, in the absence of external forces on the polymer (i.e., unbiased translocation) and hydrodynamic interactions (i.e., the polymer is a Rouse polymer), through a narrow pore. Earlier studies using the BFM concluded that the pore-blockade time scales with polymer length as $\tau_d \sim N^\beta$, with $\beta=1+2\nu$, whereas some recent studies with different polymer models produce results consistent with $\beta=2+\nu$, originally predicted by us. Here $\nu$ is the Flory exponent of the polymer; $\nu=0.75$ in 2D. In this paper we show that for the BFM if the simulations are extended to longer polymers, the purported scaling $\tau_d \sim N^{1+2\nu}$ ceases to hold. We characterize the finite-size effects, and study the mobility of individual monomers in the BFM. In particular, we find that in the BFM, in the vicinity of the pore the individual monomeric mobilities are heavily suppressed in the direction perpendicular to the membrane. After a modification of the BFM which counters this suppression (but possibly introduces other artifacts in the dynamics), the apparent exponent $\beta$ increases significantly. Our conclusion is that BFM simulations do not rule out our theoretical prediction for unbiased translocation, namely $\beta=2+\nu$.