The periodic motion of flexible knots, and the connection to DNA
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 - 06:01
in Earth & Climate
Can the topology of microobjects influence the way they move in a fluid? Experiments and simulations of Polish and Swiss researchers published in the Physical Review Letters show that the dynamics of elastic chains settling in a fluid depends on the way they are knotted. The settling chains form flat, toroidal structures composed of several intertwined loops, which swirl around each other. The study is important for the proper interpretation of sedimentation and centrifugation experiments of biomolecules.