Eur. Phys. J. E (2007) 24: 229-241
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2007-10230-4

Regular Article

Compressing a rigid filament: Buckling and cyclization

¹ Institute of Fundamental Physics, Department of Physics, Sejong University, 143-743, Seoul, South Korea
² Institut Charles Sadron, 67083, Strasbourg Cedex, France
³ Department of Physics, Korea University, 136-713, Seoul, Korea

^* e-mail: lee@sejong.ac.kr

Received: 8 July 2007
Accepted: 16 October 2007
Published online: 9 November 2007

Abstract

We study elastic properties of rigid filaments modeled as stiff chains shorter than their persistence length. By rigid filaments we mean that fluctuations around the optimal filament shape are weak and that low-order expansions (quadratic or quartic) in the deviation from the optimal shape are sufficient to describe them. Our main interest lies in the profiles of force vs. projected filament length, closure probability and weakly buckled states. Results may be relevant to experiments on self-assembled biological (microtubules, actin filaments) and synthetic (organo-gelators) filaments, carbon nanotubes and polymers grafted with strongly repelling side chains, some of which are discussed here.