Program

P.53 -- Poster, NCTP-41

Date: Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Time: 08h30 - 10h00

Phase diagram of hydrophobic thick ribbons

Thanh-Son Nguyen (1,2) and Trinh X. Hoang (1)

(1) Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 10 Dao Tan, Hanoi, Vietnam; (2) Department of Chemical Physics, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA

A ribbon is an intermediate object between a polymer and a membrane, which is frequently found in everyday life, in biology and in nanotechnology. We study the ground state phase diagram of a thick ribbon with hydrophobic surface as a function of the length of the ribbon and the diameter of solvent molecule. It is assumed that the ribbon can adopt several configurations including a globule, a rolled, a curled, a helix and a twisted conformation as its ground state. It is shown that the ribbon's non-zero thickness leads to a broken rotational symmetry of the ground state conformation. Analytical calculation supported by Monte Carlo simulations shows favorable ribbon configurations for different solvent sizes including a striking appearance of the twisted configuration even in absence of any intrinsic chiral potential. Our description of DNA as a twisted thick ribbon may serve as a useful model for DNA binding.

Presenter: Trịnh Xuân Hoàng