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arXiv · 2608.17359

Resonant Untrapping of Active Polymers in Breathing Lattices

Yihang Sun·Yixiang Li·Tsvi Tlusty·Guolong Zhu
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Abstract

In crowded environments, active polymers can trap themselves by winding into long-lived conformations. We show that fluctuations of the surrounding confinement can resonantly accelerate escape from these self-generated traps. Brownian dynamics simulations of a driven semiflexible chain in a breathing obstacle lattice reveal intermittent switching between a compact rotating spiral and an extended translating state. Long-time diffusion increases by up to two orders of magnitude when the environmental fluctuation rate becomes comparable to the spiral's intrinsic relaxation rate. The enhancement persists under stochastic fluctuations, showing that coherent periodic forcing is not required. Activity creates a second optimum: it promotes escape once favorable conformations form, yet at strong drive stabilizes the spiral and suppresses their formation. Resonant untrapping thus provides a general mechanism by which fluctuating environments regulate transport through barriers generated by internal conformational dynamics.

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Yihang Sun, Yixiang Li, Tsvi Tlusty, Guolong Zhu. 2026-08-18. Resonant Untrapping of Active Polymers in Breathing Lattices. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.17359

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