Molecular biophysics at the transition state: From statistical mechanics to AI

The effects of knot topology on the collapse of active polymers

8 Jul 2025, 12:05

30m

Palazzo Consolati - University of Trento

Oral contribution

Speaker

Davide Breoni (Università di Trento)

Description

We use numerical simulations to study tangentially active flexible ring polymers with different knot topologies. Simple, unknotted active rings display a collapse transition upon increasing the degree of polymerization. We find that topology has a significant effect on the polymer size at which the collapse takes place, with twist knots collapsing earlier than torus knots. We rationalize this behavior as a consequence of the propensity for non-neighboring bonds of torus knots to be aligned with each other, thus avoiding collisions that would eventually lead to a MIPS-like collapse.