Dynamics of macromolecules in confined environments

The dynamics of a ring macro-molecule confined to a two dimensional cell is studied. A connectivity-preserving kinetically constrained lattice gas model is introduced and used to study the effects of the shrinking of the box on dynamical correlations using Monte-Carlo simulations. It is found that the monomers comprising the macro-molecule manage to diffuse around the box with a mean squared displacement of the order of the square of the box dimensions, even at densities close to the frozen fully-packed configuration where the overall geometry remains almost unchanged over long times. Reptation and fingering events are observed and appropriate correlation functions are introduced to analyze the monomer motion and polymer reshaping at different densities.