Berlin 2008 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 7: Posters I
BP 7.21: Poster
Monday, February 25, 2008, 17:00–19:30, Poster A
Conformation of a semiflexible polymer in a disordered environment — •Sebastian Schoebl1, Abigail Klopper2, and Klaus Kroy1 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden
Biological cells are affected by the structural and mechanical properties of polymers and polymeric networks in an essential way. A particularly interesting question is how the conformations of a polymer in the cytoplasm is affected by molecular crowding. Despite the prolific attention paid to the analogous problem in flexible polymer networks in recent years, little is understood about how their stiffer counterparts respond to a disordered environment. We investigate the equilibrium and non-equilibrium conformations of semiflexible polymers in a variety of potential landscapes by Monte Carlo simulations. The polymer is represented as a Heisenberg chain, i.e. a discretised wormlike chain. Relevant observables such as the end-to-end distribution function and the tangent-tangent correlation function are evaluated.