Eur. Phys. J. E (2006) 21: 223-230
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2006-10062-8

Regular Article

Correlation in a Gaussian chain with the ends fixed

Department of physics, Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, Otsuka 2-1-1, Bunkyo-ku, 112-8610, Tokyo, Japan

^* e-mail: okumura@phys.ocha.ac.jp

Received: 30 August 2006
Accepted: 28 November 2006
Published online: 4 January 2007

Abstract

We consider an ideal chain whose ends are fixed without fluctuation at different points, possibly by optical tweezers. We derive a two-point probability distribution of a corresponding random walk and explicitly calculate the scattering function. We find that the contour plot of the resulting function shows a kind of normal butterfly pattern, contaminated by wavy texture. These results are compared with some representative previous models.