EPL, 84 (2008) 33001
DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/84/33001

Existence of free energy landscape in linear homopolymers

M. Ponmurugan<sup>1, 2

1</sup>  Materials Science Division, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research - Kalpakkam - 603102, Tamilnadu, India
²  School of Mathematics, Meteorology and Physics, University of Reading - Reading RG6 6AF, UK, EU

p.mani@reading.ac.uk
ponmurugan@yahoo.com

received 5 March 2008; accepted in final form 22 September 2008; published November 2008
published online 20 October 2008

Abstract
We observe the existence of free energy landscape as a function of end-to-end distance in linear homopolymers. For different temperatures, we find that the equilibrium free energy landscape of homopolymers as a function of end-to-end distance closely resembles a recent investigation (IMPARATO A., LUCCIOLI S. and TORCINI A. Phys. Rev. Lett., 99 (2007) 168101) of a mechanically unfolded model protein. Our exact enumeration study provides a new link between the theory of protein folding and polymers.

PACS
36.20.Ey - Conformation (statistics and dynamics).
64.60.De - Statistical mechanics of model systems (Ising model, Potts model, field-theory models, Monte Carlo techniques, etc.).
05.20.-y - Classical statistical mechanics.

© EPLA 2008