Dynamic Fluctuations of Semiflexible Polymers

TL;DR

This paper develops a scaling theory and simulations to analyze the dynamic fluctuations of semiflexible polymers, revealing distinct regimes and providing insights relevant to microrheology experiments in actin solutions.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new scaling theory for semiflexible polymer fluctuations and employs simulation techniques to characterize their dynamic regimes.

Findings

Longitudinal fluctuations scale as t^7/8

Correlation length varies as t^1/8

Results aid interpretation of microrheology data

Abstract

We develop a scaling theory to describe dynamic fluctuations of a semiflexible polymer and find several distinct regimes. We performed simulations to characterize the longitudinal and transverse dynamics; using ensemble averaging for a range of different degrees of coarse-graining we avoid the problems of slow equilibration often encountered in simulations. We find that the longitudinal fluctuations of a semiflexible object scales as t^7/8. These fluctuations are correlated over a length which varies as t^1/8. Our results are pertinent to the interpretation of high frequency microrheology experiments in actin solutions.