The Lifshitz equation for the confinement of a linear polymer in a spherical cavity of radius R has the form of the Schrödinger equation for a quantum particle trapped in a potential well with flat bottom and infinite walls at radius R. We show that the Lifshitz equation of a confined annealed branched polymer has the form of the Schrödinger equation for a quantum harmonic oscillator. The resulting confinement energy has a 1/R4 dependence on the confinement radius R, in contrast to the case of confined linear polymers, which have a 1/R2 dependence. We discuss the application of this result to the problem of the confinement of single-stranded RNA molecules inside spherical capsids.
CITATION STYLE
Grosberg, A. Y., & Bruinsma, R. (2018). Confining annealed branched polymers inside spherical capsids. Journal of Biological Physics, 44(2), 133–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-018-9483-x
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