Tension dynamics in semiflexible polymers. II. Scaling solutions and applications

In part I O. Hallatschek , preceding paper, Phys. Rev. E 75, 031905
(2007)] of this contribution, a systematic coarse-grained
description of the dynamics of a weakly bending semiflexible
polymer was developed. Here, we discuss analytical solutions of the
established deterministic partial integro-differential equation for
the spatiotemporal relaxation of the backbone tension. For
prototypal experimental situations, such as the sudden application
or release of a strong external pulling force, it is demonstrated
that the tensile dynamics reflects the self-affine conformational
fluctuation spectrum in a variety of intermediate asymptotic power
laws. Detailed and explicit analytical predictions for the tension
propagation and relaxation and corresponding results for common
observables, such as the end-to-end distance, are obtained.