A circular polymer chain in a gel - the reduction of the state space

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the state space of a circular polymer chain in a gel, demonstrating how symmetry reduces complexity and exploring how external fields influence electrophoretic motion, velocity, and diffusion.

Contribution

It introduces a symmetry-based reduction of the polymer's state space and applies it to study electrophoretic motion in gel under external fields.

Findings

Reduced state space simplifies analysis of polymer dynamics.

Strong external fields decrease velocity and diffusion coefficient.

Relaxation times to absorbing states are quantitatively evaluated.

Abstract

The state space of a polymer molecule is analysed. We show how the size of the state space can be reduced on the basis of symmetry. In the reduced state space, the probability of a new state (termed below as class) is equal to the number of old states represented by the new state multiplied by the probability of each old state. As an application, the electrophoretic motion of the molecule in gel is considered. We discuss the influence of the gel medium and of external field on the molecule states, with absorbing states of hooked molecules playing a major role. We show that in the case of strong fields both the velocity and the diffusion coefficient decrease with field. Finally, we evaluate the time of relaxation to and from the absorbing states. This is done with a continuous version of the exact enumeration method for weighted networks.