Passage Times for Polymer Translocation Pulled through a Narrow Pore

¹ University of Amsterdam
² Utrecht University

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dpanja{at}science.uva.nl.

Submitted on July 3, 2007
Revised on August 13, 2007
Accepted on 26 September 2007

	Abstract

We study the passage times of a translocating polymer of length N in three dimensions, while it is pulled through a narrow pore with a constant force F applied to one end of the polymer. At small to moderate forces, satisfying the condition FN/k_BT<~1, where 0.588 is the Flory exponent for the polymer, we find that _N, the mean time the polymer takes to leave the pore, scales as N²⁺ independent of F, in agreement with our earlier result for F=0. At strong forces, i.e., for FN/k_BT>>1, the behaviour of the passage time crosses over to _N~N²/F. We show here that these behaviours stem from the polymer dynamics at the immediate vicinity of the pore --- in particular, the memory effects in the polymer chain tension imbalance across the pore.

Key Words: biopolymer, memory effects, scaling, translocation