Forcing a polymer out of a potential well

Abstract

We consider the forced escape of a polymer out of a potential well. The process has two steps - crossing the activation barrier, and translocation of the chain over the barrier. We suggest that translocation occurs by the motion of a kink, whose shape and velocity change as more and more beads of the polymer have come out of the potential well. We find that for short polymers, the translocation time t_trans∼ln(n₀), where n₀ is the number of beads that have crossed the barrier. For long chains, the translocation time ∼N, the total number of beads.