Thermal properties of knotted block copolymer rings with charged monomers subjected to short-range interactions*

The subject of this talk are the thermal properties of coarse grained knotted copolymer rings fluctuating in a highly screening solution and defined on a simple cubic lattice. The rings contain two kinds of monomers A and B with opposite charges that are subjected to short range interactions. The used model reminds similar models that are applied in proteins.

Similar as in proteins, we find that knotted polymers with an excess of monomers of one kind admit rearrangements leading to metastable states. The temperatures at which the intermediate phase is occurring and other features can be tuned by changing the topology of the system. Finally, a method that is able to capture the relevant properties of the structure of knotted polymer rings in solution will be presented.