Paper detail

Dynamics of single polymers under extreme confinement

We study the dynamics of a single chain polymer confined to a two dimensional cell. We introduce a kinetically constrained lattice gas model that preserves the connectivity of the chain, and we use this kinetically constrained model to study the dynamics of the polymer at varying densities through Monte Carlo simulations. Even at densities close to the fully-packed configuration, we find that the monomers comprising the chain manage to diffuse around the box with a root mean square displacement of the order of the box dimensions over time scales for which the overall geometry of the polymer is, nevertheless, largely preserved. To capture this shape persistence, we define the local tangent field and study the two-time tangent-tangent correlation function, which exhibits a glass-like behavior. In both closed and open chains, we observe reptational motion and reshaping through local fingering events which entail global monomer displacement.