Biomedical subjects

Mehran Kardar

Publications and source records attributed to Mehran Kardar.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2002

Equilibrium shapes of flat knots.

We study the equilibrium shapes of prime and composite knots confined to two dimensions. Using scaling arguments we show that, due to self-avoiding effects, the topological details of prime knots are localized on a small portion of the larger ring polymer. Within this region, the original knot configuration can assume a hierarchy of contracted shapes, the dominating one given by just one small loop. This hierarchy is investigated in detail for the flat trefoil knot, and corroborated by Monte Carlo simulations.

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PubMed2002

Correlation functions near modulated and rough surfaces.

In a system with long-ranged correlations, the behavior of correlation functions is sensitive to the presence of a boundary. We show that surface deformations strongly modify this behavior as compared to a flat surface. The modified near surface correlations can be measured by scattering probes. To determine these correlations, we develop a perturbative calculation in the deformations in height from a flat surface. Detailed results are given for a regularly patterned surface, as well as for a self-affinely rough surface with roughness exponent zeta. By combining this perturbative calculation in height deformations with the field-theoretic renormalization-group approach, we also estimate the values of critical exponents governing the behavior of the decay of correlation functions near a self-affinely rough surface. We find that for the interacting theory, a large enough zeta can lead to a different surface critical behavior. We also provide scaling relations between roughness induced critical exponents for thermodynamic surface quantities.

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PubMed2001

Anomalous dynamics of translocation.

We study the dynamics of the passage of a polymer through a membrane pore (translocation), focusing on the scaling properties with the number of monomers N. The natural coordinate for translocation is the number of monomers on one side of the hole at a given time. Commonly used models that assume Brownian dynamics for this variable predict a mean (unforced) passage time tau that scales as N2, even in the presence of an entropic barrier. In particular, however, the time it takes for a free polymer to diffuse a distance of the order of its radius by Rouse dynamics scales with an exponent larger than two, and this should provide a lower bound to the translocation time. To resolve this discrepancy, we perform numerical simulations with Rouse dynamics for both phantom (in space dimensions d=1 and 2), and self-avoiding (in d=2) chains. The results indicate that for large N, translocation times scale in the same manner as diffusion times, but with a larger prefactor that depends on the size of the hole. Such scaling implies anomalous dynamics for the translocation process. In particular, the fluctuations in the monomer number at the hole are predicted to be nondiffusive at short times, while the average pulling velocity of the polymer in the presence of a chemical-potential difference is predicted to depend on N.

Journal Article↗