Random Knotting in Fractal Ring Polymers.

Abstract

Many ring polymer systems of physical and biological interest exhibit both pronounced topological effects and nontrivial self-similarity, but the relationship between these two phenomena has not yet been clearly established. Here, we use theory and simulation to formulate such a connection by studying a fundamental topological property—the random knotting probability—for ring polymers with varying fractal dimension, df. Using straightforward scaling arguments, we generalize a classic mathematical result, showing that the probability of a trivial knot decays exponentially with chain size, N, for all fractal dimensions: P0(N) ∝ exp(−N/N0). However, no such simple considerations can account for the dependence of the knotting length, N0, on df, necessitating a more involved analytical calculation. This analysis reveals a complicated double-exponential dependence, which is well supported by numerical data. By contrast, functional forms typical of simple scaling theories fail to adequately describe the observations. These findings are equally valid for two-dimensional ring polymer systems, where “knotting” is defined as the intersection of any two segments.