Universal Force Correlations in an RNA-DNA Unzipping Experiment
Kay Jörg Wiese1, Mathilde Bercy2 , Lena Melkonyan2, Thierry Bizebard3
1 CNRS-Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de
l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC,
24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
2 UMR 7615, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.
3 UMR 8104, Institut Cochin, 22 rue Méchain, 75014 Paris, France
Abstract
We study unzipping of a complementary RNA-DNA helix applied to an external force, focusing on the force-force correlations. While at the microscopic level these are given by the sequence, the experiment measures effective, macroscopic correlations. The latter are sequence independent, i.e., universal, and constitute the central object of the underlying field theory of disordered systems. Comparing field-theory predictions and the exact solution of a one-dimensional toy model with the experiment, we find an excellent agreement, confirming fundamental theoretical concepts via biologically inspired experiments.
arXiv:1909.01319 [pdf]
Phys. Rev. Research 2 (2020) 043385 [pdf]
Copyright (C)
by Kay Wiese. Last edited Dec. 17, 2020.