On phase diagram and the pseudogap state in a linear chiral homopolymer modelстатья
Статья опубликована в высокорейтинговом журнале
Информация о цитировании статьи получена из
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Статья опубликована в журнале из списка Web of Science и/или Scopus
Дата последнего поиска статьи во внешних источниках: 9 октября 2015 г.
Аннотация:The phase structure of a single self-interacting homopolymer chain is investigated in terms of a universal theoretical model, designed to describe the chain in the infrared limit of slow spatial variations. The effects of chirality are studied and compared with the influence of a short-range attractive interaction between monomers, at various ambient temperature values. In the high-temperature limit the homopolymer chain is in the self-avoiding random walk phase. At very low temperatures two different phases are possible: When short-range attractive interactions dominate over chirality, the chain collapses into a space-filling conformation. But when the attractive interactions weaken, there is a low-temperature unfolding transition and the chain becomes like a straight rod. Between the high- and low-temperature limits, several intermediate states are observed, including the θ regime and pseudogap state, which is a novel form of phase state in the context of polymer chains. Applications to polymers and proteins, in particular collagen, are suggested.