0000000000000951
AUTHOR
Hans Behringer
Brownian dynamics simulations with hard-body interactions: Spherical particles
A novel approach to account for hard-body interactions in (overdamped) Brownian dynamics simulations is proposed for systems with non-vanishing force fields. The scheme exploits the analytically known transition probability for a Brownian particle on a one-dimensional half-line. The motion of a Brownian particle is decomposed into a component that is affected by hard-body interactions and into components that are unaffected. The hard-body interactions are incorporated by replacing the affected component of motion by the evolution on a half-line. It is discussed under which circumstances this approach is justified. In particular, the algorithm is developed and formulated for systems with spa…
Homopolymer adsorption on periodically structured surfaces in systems with incommensurable lengths
Surface-induced selective adsorption of homopolymers on a generic level is numerically analyzed for freely jointed chains (with a fixed bond length) whose monomers are attracted by the sites of regular periodic patterns. In particular, the behavior of the specific heat, the gyration tensor, and the bond order tensor are investigated as functions of the temperature. The properties of the transition are related to the interplay of the characteristic lengths. The adsorption proceeds in two steps for certain incommensurabilities of the bond length and the lattice constant. The corresponding adsorption mechanisms are elucidated by looking at the evolution of the inter bond angle distribution upo…
Hard-wall interactions in soft matter systems: Exact numerical treatment
An algorithm for handling hard-wall interactions in simulations of driven diffusive particle motion is proposed. It exploits an exact expression for the one-dimensional transition probability in the presence of a hard (reflecting) wall and therefore is numerically exact in the sense that it does not introduce any additional approximation beyond the usual discretization procedures. Studying two standard situations from soft matter systems, its performance is compared to the heuristic approaches used in the literature.
Pattern-recognising Polymer Adsorption on Structured Surfaces: Gaussian Polymers vs. Freely Jointed Chains
Abstract Selective adsorption of homopolymers is exploited as a model for pattern recognition. To this end the strong adsorption regime of Gaussian polymers adsorbed on a regularly structured surface is investigated for square and triangular lattices within a discrete Edwards model. The equilibrium behaviour of the specific heat, the gyration tensor and the (nematic) bond order tensor are analysed and compared to the properties for adsorbed freely jointed polymer chains.