Stable intermediate phase of secondary structures for semiflexible polymers
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Updated: Aug 2, 2025

DNA Nanotubes as a Versatile Tool to Study Semiflexible Polymers
Published on: October 25, 2017
Dilimulati Aierken1, Michael Bachmann1
1Soft Matter Systems Research Group, Center for Simulational Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA.
Abstract:
Systematic microcanonical inflection-point analysis of precise numerical results obtained in extensive generalized-ensemble Monte Carlo simulations reveals a bifurcation of the coil-globule transition line for polymers with a bending stiffness exceeding a threshold value. The region, enclosed by the toroidal and random-coil phases, is dominated by structures crossing over from hairpins to loops upon lowering the energy. Conventional canonical statistical analysis is not sufficiently sensitive to allow for the identification of these separate phases.
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