Giant non-universal critical index and fluctuations in DNA phase transition

Azbel’, Mark Ya.

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2003, vol. 321, issue 3, 571-576

Abstract: Thermal unbinding of a double-stranded DNA molecule is a phase transition with a giant (over 100) critical index. The index is non-universal, it changes with concentrations and melting temperatures of base pairs. At slightly lower temperatures it switches to an essential singularity. A finite DNA completely unbinds below critical temperature. The shift from the critical temperature is stochastic. It is inversely proportional to the logarithm of the DNA length, and is observable even in a DNA solution, where the total number of DNA base pairs is, e.g., ∼1020. Its macroscopically large fluctuations are characteristic of DNA unbinding.

Keywords: DNA denaturation; Phase transition; Fluctuations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437102017454
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:321:y:2003:i:3:p:571-576

DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01745-4

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().