Elasticity of semi-flexible polymers

TL;DR

This paper provides a numerical analysis of the Worm-Like Chain model for semi-flexible polymers, offering detailed predictions on their force-extension behavior and fluctuations, relevant for understanding biological molecule mechanics.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive numerical solution for the WLC model covering all polymer lengths, aligning with recent simulations and experimental possibilities.

Findings

Graphs of end-to-end distance distribution and force-extension relations.

Predicted fluctuations around mean force-extension curves.

Reproduces qualitative features observed in computer simulations.

Abstract

We present a numerical solution of the Worm-Like Chain (WLC) model for semi-flexible polymers. We display graphs for the end-to-end distance distribution and the force-extension relation expected from the model. We predict the expected level of fluctuations around the mean value in force-extension curves. Our treatment analyses the entire range of polymer lengths and reproduces interesting qualitative features seen in recent computer simulations for polymers of intermediate length. These results can be tested against experiments on single molecules. This study is relevant to mechanical properties of biological molecules.