Comment on 'Statistical mechanics of developable ribbons' by L. Giomi and L. Mahadevan

TL;DR

This paper critiques a previous study on elastic ribbons, arguing that its findings of an intrinsic helical structure are artifacts of flawed methodology, and clarifies that no such effect exists.

Contribution

It identifies and corrects methodological errors in the prior work, clarifying the true behavior of elastic ribbons without intrinsic curvature.

Findings

Previous results are artifacts of flawed formulation

No evidence for intrinsic helical structure in ribbons

Clarification of elastic ribbon behavior

Abstract

Giomi and Mahadevan [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 238104 (2010)] study the statistical mechanics of elastic ribbons and claim to provide evidence for "an underlying helical structure" of ribbon-like polymers even in the absence of intrinsic curvature (or, in the authors' words, "of a preferential zero-temperature twist"). They find a persistence length that is over three times that of a wormlike chain having the same bending rigidity. We show that these results are an artefact of the authors' flawed formulation, which produces a helical bias, and that no support for the described effect can be claimed.