Multifractality, Levinthal paradox, and energy hypersurface - art. no. 020901

Multifractal properties in the potential energy hypersurface of polypeptide s and proteins are investigated. Characteristic multifractal behavior for d ifferent molecular systems is obtained from the f(alpha) spectra. The analy sis shows that the dimension of the phase space of the problem influences t he accessibility to different parts of the potential energy hypersurface. A lso, we show that it is necessary to take into account the H-bond formation between amino acids in the conformational-folding search. The present find ings indicate that the f(alpha) function describes some structural properti es of a protein. The behavior of the f(alpha) spectra gives an alternative explanation about the Levinthal paradox. Furthermore, the anomalous tempera ture dependence of the Raman spin-lattice relaxation rates can be related t o the perturbations in the secondary structures.