Polymer translocation induced by adsorption

TL;DR

This paper investigates how polymer translocation through a membrane pore is affected by adsorption, revealing temperature-dependent scaling laws and a conformational transition that influence translocation times.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of adsorption-induced polymer translocation, highlighting the impact of temperature and polymer length on translocation dynamics and conformational transitions.

Findings

Translocation time scales as L^3 above T_c.

Below T_c, translocation time scales as L^2.

A crossover temperature T_c' affects shorter polymers.

Abstract

We study the translocation of a flexible polymer through a pore in a membrane induced by its adsorption on \trans side of the membrane. When temperature $T$ is higher than $T_c$, the adsorption-desorption transition temperature, attractive interaction between polymer and membrane plays little role in affecting polymer conformation, leading to translocation time that scales as $\tau\sim L^3$ where $L$ is the polymer contour length. When $T < T_c$, however, the translocation time undergoes a sharp crossover to $\tau\sim L^2$ for sufficiently long polymers, following the second order conformational (adsorption) transition. The translocation time is found to exhibit the crossover around $T=T_c'$, which is lower than $T_c$ for polymers shorter than a critical length($N<N_c$).