Abstract
Understanding fluctuation-induced breakages in polymers has important implications for basic and applied sciences. Here I present for the first time an analytical treatment of the thermal breakage problem of a semi-flexible polymer model that is asymptotically exact in the low temperature and high friction limits. Specifically, I provide analytical expressions for the breakage propensity and rate, and discuss the generalities of the results and their relevance to biopolymers. This work is fundamental to our understanding of the kinetics of living polymerisation.
Highlights
From man-made materials to biopolymers, semi-flexible polymers are ubiquitous in science and engineering, and better understanding of their stability is of high importance
I will provide for the first time analytical expressions of the breakage profile and rate of a highly-rigid polymer in the high friction and low temperature regimes
The model formulation focuses on polymers at thermal equilibrium, the results remain valid as long as the dynamics of the polymer is well approximated by equation (1)
Summary
From man-made materials to biopolymers, semi-flexible polymers are ubiquitous in science and engineering, and better understanding of their stability is of high importance. There is currently no concensus on the breakage profile [5,6,7]: some have advocated that breakage happens predominantly in the middle of the polymer [8] while others have assumed uniform breakage propensity [2, 3, 9,10,11]. This confusion is due in part to the fact that most existing results rely. I will provide for the first time analytical expressions of the breakage profile and rate of a highly-rigid polymer in the high friction (highly damped) and low temperature regimes
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