Form factor for distorted semi-flexible polymer chains

Abstract

The statistical presence of kinks which form defects in semi-flexible polymer chains leads to a polydispersity in the effective persistence length. The form factor of a distorted semi-flexible polymer results as an average over this persistence polydispersity. It turns out that the scattering behavior of an ensemble of distorted semi-flexible polymer chains is quite well approximated by a form factor of an undistorted chain with a R_g-equivalent persistence length. An apparent length polydispersity is observed for short distorted chains. The R_g-equivalent persistence length is significantly smaller than the innate persistence length multiplied by the fraction of regular monomers. The results are compared to related work on DNA from the literature.