| Date: | Wed, 22 Feb 2006 |
| From: | Chris Rycroft |
| Subject: | Simple Person's Applied Math Seminar - Thursday, 5pm, 2-139 |
Hi all,
This week at SPAMS we will have Brian Ross, who'll be telling us
about the statistical mechanics of polymers. The talk will be held at
5pm on Thursday in 2-139, and will be followed by Indian food in the
Applied Math Common Room.
Hope to see you then,
Chris, Pak, Kevin,
The SPAMS Organizers.
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Title:
Statistical mechanics of polymers: the Wormlike Chain model
Abstract:
The living cell is composed mainly of polymers and water, and many
biological processes are affected by the particular conformations
polymers are likely to explore while floating in solution. One
tractable model of these processes treats the polymer as a so-called
"wormlike chain", a semi-flexible rod with a quadratic potential
energy in bending and torsion. The likelihood of finding a wormlike
chain with endpoints at a given relative position and orientation is
a problem that was only recently solved. The solution, which will be
the focus of this talk, employs statistical ensembles, path integrals
and a 'resummation' to arrive at a closed-form expression suitable
for numerical evaluation.
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