Van der Waals interaction between polymers with sequence-specific polarizabilities: Stiff polymers and flexible Gaussian coils

TL;DR

This paper investigates the van der Waals interactions between polymers with sequence-specific polarizabilities, revealing how sequence identity and heterogeneity influence interaction strength and anisotropy in both stiff and flexible polymers.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of how heterogeneity and sequence identity affect van der Waals interactions in polymers with different flexibilities, extending understanding of sequence-dependent interactions.

Findings

Identical Gaussian coils have isotropic interactions with the same decay as distinct coils.

Interaction energies of stiff polymers are anisotropic and depend on orientation.

Heterogeneity enhances the attractive interaction between identical polymers.

Abstract

We consider the van der Waals interaction between a pair of polymers with quenched heterogeneous sequences of local polarizabilities along their backbones, and study the effective pairwise interaction energy for both stiff polymers and flexible Gaussian coils. In particular, we focus on the cases where the pair of polarizability sequences are (i)~distinct and (ii)~identical. We find that the pairwise interaction energies of distinct and identical Gaussian coils are both isotropic and exhibit the same decay behavior for separations larger than the gyration radius, in contradistinction to the orientationally anisotropic interaction energies of distinct and identical stiff polymers. For both Gaussian coils and stiff polymers, the attractive interaction between identical polymers is enhanced if the polarizability sequence is more heterogeneous.