Defects on semiflexible filaments: Kinks and twist kinks

摘要

Due to local interactions with ligands or to global constraints, semiflexible filaments can exhibit localized defects. We focus on filaments laying flat on a surface. The two lowest order singularities are addressed: discontinuities of the orientation, which are called kink, and discontinuities of the curvature. The latter are called twist kinks in flattened helical filaments where they can form spontaneously. We calculate the partition functions for a given defect fugacity and discuss some often measured quantities like the correlation of the orientation along the filament.