We see how tightening the radius of a soft tube membrane can lead to a first-order phase transition in a confined polymer, shown by a Monte Carlo simulation from Jeff Chen’s group. A swollen-to-globular transition can be identified where conformation of the confined polymer undergoes an abrupt transition from a shape elongated in the tube axis to a globule that is of smaller dimensions than an unperturbed polymer. This simulation has verified a recent experimental observation and a new scaling theory.
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