Orientational Ordering of Polymers on a Fluctuating Flexible Surface

TL;DR

Embedding semi-flexible polymers into a fluctuating surface induces an effective attractive interaction that causes orientational ordering of the polymers, driven by surface fluctuation energy changes similar to a Casimir force.

Contribution

This work introduces a novel mechanism where surface fluctuations induce orientational ordering of polymers, even without direct interactions.

Findings

Surface fluctuations lead to an effective attractive interaction between polymers.

This interaction causes an orientational ordering transition of the polymer chains.

The mechanism is analogous to the Casimir effect in quantum field theory.

Abstract

Arguments are presented to the effect that embedding semi-flexible (wormlike) ideal polymers into a fluctuating, flexible surface leads to an effective attractive orientational interaction between polymer segments that precipitates an orientational ordering transition of the polymer chains on the surface even in the case of otherwise ideal (non-interacting) chains. The orientational interaction is analogous to the (zero order) Casimir force and is due to the energy change in surface conformational fluctuations in the presence of embedded semi-flexible chains.