Persistence-Length Renormalization of Polymers in a Crowded Environment of Hard Disks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a crowded environment of hard disks affects the persistence length of semiflexible polymers, revealing a universal renormalization that quantifies molecular crowding effects.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic growth algorithm to analyze polymers in a 2D hard-disk environment and identifies a universal form of persistence length renormalization.

Findings

Polymer persistence length is renormalized by crowding.

Universal form of disorder renormalization identified.

Quantitative measure of molecular crowding proposed.

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 two-dimensional 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.