Effects of asymmetries on the behaviour of two polymers confined to a boxlike cavity

The behaviour of systems of confined polymers has been the topic of much recent research. The information from these studies may help guide the development and optimization of nanofluidic devices as well as provide insight into the mechanism for segregation of DNA chromosomes in prokaryotic cells. Some recent experiments examined two DNA molecules confined to a box-like cavity with strong confinement in one dimension. The researchers examined the effect of asymmetries in the cross-section of the box and polymer length. In this study, we use computer simulations to examine the effect of such asymmetries on the behaviour of confined-polymer systems. We employ a simplistic bead-spring-chain model in computer simulations to obtain information about the behaviour of the system. We find that asymmetries in the cross-section of the box tend to promote segregation of the polymers along the long axis of the box. We further find that in cases where the polymers are different lengths, the longer polymer tends to have a strong preference for the centre of the box while the smaller polymer is pushed away from the centre. The information obtained from this study is then used to obtain insight into the trends observed in the experiments.