Variational approach to relaxation in complex free energy landscapes: The polymer folding problem

ARIEL FERNANDEZ; GUSTAVO APPIGNANESI

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 1997 vol. 78 p. 2668 - 2672

0031-9007

A statistical theory of the folding dynamics of an ensemble of random heteropolymers is developed. The predicted relaxation is consistent with the glassy behavior of quenched disorder and is singled out by a generic least action principle: In processes of increasing difficulty, the logarithmic growth in time of the expected activation barrier yields the fastest relaxation pathway.