Organized condensation of worm-like chains

¹ Departments of Physics, University of California Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
² Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA

Received: 21 December 1999
Accepted: 18 May 2000

Abstract

We consider the equilibrium behavior of a wormlike chain of arbitrary length interacting with a spherical organizing center via a short-range attraction. We obtain a rich phase diagram in which a wrapping state is transformed into a multi-leafed (“rosette”) structure as the adhesion energy is reduced. By neglecting interactions between the leaves, the statistical mechanics of the “melting” of the rosette reduces to a one-dimensional many-body problem.