Abstract
We develop a formalism for describing the kinematics of a wormlike chain confined to the surface of a sphere that simultaneously satisfies the spherical confinement and the inextensibility of the chain contour. We use this formalism to study the statistical behavior of the wormlike chain on a spherical surface. In particular, we provide an exact, closed-form expression for the mean square end-to-end distance that is valid for any value of chain length , persistence length , and sphere radius . We predict two qualitatively different behaviors for a long polymer depending on the ratio . For , the mean square end-to-end distance increases monotonically with the chain length, whereas for , a damped oscillatory behavior is predicted.
- Received 6 June 2003
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.166102
©2003 American Physical Society