The entrance dynamics of polymers into a gel

Walter Kob; Leticia F. Cugliandolo

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arXiv · cond-mat/0006049

The entrance dynamics of polymers into a gel

Walter Kob·Leticia F. Cugliandolo

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Abstract

We use computer simulations to study the (driven) dynamics of a charged polymer in a disordered medium, thus mimicking the setting used in gel electrophoresis. In agreement with experiments, we find that inside the gel the mobility of the polymer is only a weak function of its length N. In contrast to this, the mean entrance time into the gel, is a very strong function of N, \propto N^1.3, and does not show any sign of saturation with increasing N. We rationalize this effect by means of a simple model and propose an experimental setup that should allow to increase the separation ability of gel electrophoresis significantly.

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Walter Kob, Leticia F. Cugliandolo. 2000-06-03. The entrance dynamics of polymers into a gel. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0006049

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