Supercoiled ring polymers under shear flow
- Author(s)
- Christoph Schneck, Jan Smrek, Christos N. Likos, Andreas Zöttl
- Abstract
We apply monomer-resolved computer simulations of supercoiled ring polymers under shear, taking full account of the hydrodynamic interactions, accompanied, in parallel, by simulations in which these are switched off. The combination of bending and torsional rigidities inherent in these polymers, in conjunction with hydrodynamics, has a profound impact on their flow properties. In contrast to their flexible counterparts, which dramatically deform and inflate under shear [Liebetreu et al., Commun. Mater. 2020, 1, 4], supercoiled rings undergo only weak changes in their overall shape and they display both a reduced propensity to tumbling (at fixed Weissenberg number) and a much stronger orientational resistance with respect to their flexible counterparts. In the presence of hydrodynamic interactions, the coupling of the polymer to solvent flow is capable of bringing about a topological transformation of writhe to twist at strong shear upon conservation of the overall linking number.
- Organisation(s)
- Computational and Soft Matter Physics
- External organisation(s)
- University of the Basque Country, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
- Journal
- Nanoscale
- Volume
- 16
- No. of pages
- 20
- ISSN
- 2040-3364
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.10414
- Publication date
- 03-2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103015 Condensed matter
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Materials Science(all)
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/supercoiled-ring-polymers-under-shear-flow(f5de6930-bc5e-4cf1-b274-601e027620ce).html