Universality of random knotting
- 1 May 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review E
- Vol. 55 (5) , 6245-6248
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.55.6245
Abstract
Knotting probability [(N)] is defined by the probability of an N-noded random polygon being topologically equivalent to a given knot K. For several nontrivial knots we numerically evaluate the knotting probabilities for Gaussian and rod-bead models. We find that they are well approximated by the following formula: (N)=C(K)[Ñ/N(K)exp[-Ñ/N(K)] where Ñ=N-(K), and that the fitting parameters C(K), N(K), and (K) are model dependent, while m(K) is not. We suggest that given a knot K, the exponent m(K) should be universal: it is independent of models of random polygon and is determined only by the knot K.
Keywords
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