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Enzo Orlandini
Affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Padova and
Sezione INFN, INFM
Address: via Marzolo 8, I-35000, Padova, Italy
Phone: +39 049 8277171
Fax: +39 049 8277102
orlandini@pd.infn.it
Attilio L. Stella
Affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Padova and
Sezione INFN, INFM
Address: via Marzolo 8, I-35000, Padova, Italy
Phone: +39 049 8277171
Fax : +39 049 8277102
stella@pd.infn.it
Stu Whittington
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto
Address: 80 St. George Street, Toronto, Canada M5S 3H6
Phone: 001 416 978 5287 or 001 416 978 3566
Fax: 001 416 978 5325
swhittin@chem.utoronto.ca
Scientific background
When a long linear polymer is in dilute solution the polymer can be self-entangled and this entanglement can be captured as a knot in a ring closure reaction. These knots and entanglements can have important effects on physical properties such as rubber elasticity and polymer crystallization. In DNA they can interfere with important cellular processes such as replication and transcription. Knotting in models of ring polymers has been studied since at least the early 1970's. One might hope to be able to prove some rigorous results about the probability of knotting as a function of the size of the polymer and this was achieved originally for lattice models and then, shortly after, for several continuum models, in the limit of long poymers. More delicate questions, such as the probability of occurence of a particular knot type, or the behaviour for finite size systems, are currently beyond rigorous methods but these questions can be approached numerically. Many Monte Carlo approaches have been devised and we now have a reasonable understanding of knotting and linking in some models system, when the concentration of polymer is low. More concentrated systems, such as polymer melts, are more difficult. This conference is intended to bring together mathematicians, physicists and molecular biologists with an interest in these questions. The aim is to review the field and to encourage interaction between researchers from different research areas, with a common interest in knotting and linking in polymeric systems.