Mode selectivity of dynamically induced conformation in many-body chain-like bead-spring model

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the interplay between spring motion and normal modes influences the stability of chain conformations in a bead-spring model, revealing that lower eigenfrequency modes stabilize while higher ones destabilize the structure.

Contribution

It extends the analysis of dynamically induced conformation from three-body systems to many-body chain models, identifying the role of normal mode eigenfrequencies in stability.

Findings

Lower eigenfrequency modes stabilize chain conformation.

Higher eigenfrequency modes tend to destabilize conformation.

Numerical simulations confirm theoretical predictions.

Abstract

We consider conformation of a chain consisting of beads connected by stiff springs, where the conformation is determined by the bending angles between the consecutive two springs. A conformation is stabilized or destabilized not only by a given bending potential but also the fast spring motion, and stabilization by the spring motion depends on their excited normal modes. This stabilization mechanism has been named the dynamically induced conformation in a previous work on a three-body system. We extend analyses of the dynamically induced conformation in many-body chain-like bead-spring systems. The normal modes of the springs depend on the conformation, and the simple rule of the dynamical stabilization is that the lowest eigenfrequency mode contributes to the stabilization of the conformation. The high the eigenfrequency is, the more the destabilization emerges. We verify theoretical predictions by performing numerical simulations.