STRAIGHTENING OF THERMAL FLUCTUATIONS IN SEMIFLEXIBLE POLYMERS BY APPLIED TENSION

We investigate the propagation of a suddenly applied tension along a t hermally excited semiflexible polymer using analytical approximations, scaling arguments, and numerical simulation. This problem is inherent ly nonlinear. We find subdiffusive propagation with a dynamical expone nt of 1/4. By generalizing the internal elasticity, we show that tense strings exhibit qualitatively different tension profiles and propagat ion with an exponent of 1/2.