Screening by symmetry of long-range hydrodynamic interactions of polymers confined in sheets

Hydrodynamic forces may significantly affect the motion of polymers. In sheet-like cavities, such as the cell's cytoplasm and microfluidic channels, the hydrodynamic forces are long-range. It is therefore expected that that hydrodynamic interactions will dominate the motion of polymers in sheets and will be manifested by Zimm-like scaling. Quite the opposite, we note here that although the hydrodynamic forces are long-range their overall effect on the motion of polymers vanishes due to the symmetry of the two-dimensional flow. As a result, the predicted scaling of experimental observables such as the diffusion coefficient or the rotational diffusion time is Rouse-like, in accord with recent experiments. The effective screening validates the use of the non-interacting blobs picture for polymers confined in a sheet.Comment: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/tlusty/papers/Macromolecules2006.pdf http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ma060251