Research project is (co) funded by the Slovenian Research Agency.
UL Member: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
Code: J1-7435
Project: Generalized conservation law for polymer nematics and ordering states of nematic biopolymers
Period: 1.1.2016 - 31.12.2018
Range per year: 1,63 FTE, category C
Head: Podgornik Rudolf
Research activity: Natural sciences and mathematics
Research Organisations: link on SICRIS
Researchers: link on SICRIS
Citations for bibliographic records: link on SICRIS
Project description:
The aim of the research project is to verify, interpret, ramify, and generalize, theoretically and by microscopic simulations, our recent finding - the tensorial conservation law for nematic polymers, and find new polymer configurations based thereon, in particular those of DNA in spherical or icosahedral enclosures with hard walls mimicking DNA packing inside viral capsids. The tensorial conservation law is a new macroscopic continuity equation stemming from the microscopic connectivity of the polymer chain, coupling the gradients of the polymer nematic order tensor and variations of the polymer density, analogous to the vectorial continuity equation for the so-called polymer current. It represents a fundamental advance in our understanding of polymer ordering in dense phases. The research is vital for the actual breakthrough of the new generalized continuity law for nematic polymers, of which the tensorial and the vectorial conservation law should represent two limits.
Work packages:
The research will be pursued along three principal lines:
- The tensorial conservation law will be pursued further theoretically
- Microscopic simulations
- The implementation of the tensorial constraint in 3D numerical calculations
