Structure and stability of chiral beta-tapes: a computational coarse-grained approach

We present two coarse-grained models of different levels of detail for the description of beta-sheet tapes obtained from equilibrium self-assembly of short rationally designed oligopeptides in solution. Here we only consider the case of the homopolymer oligopeptides with the identical sidegroups attached, in which the tapes have a helicoid surface with two equivalent sides. The influence of the chirality parameter on the geometrical characteristics, namely the diameter, inter-strand distance and pitch, of the tapes have been investigated. The two models are found to produceequivalent results suggesting a considerable degree of universality in conformations of the tapes.Comment: 24 pages, 5 PS figures. Accepted to J. Chem. Phy

Electron mass operator in a strong magnetic field

The electron mass operator in a strong magnetic field is calculated by summation of the leading log contributions in all orders of the perturbation theory. An influence of the strong field on the virtual photon polarization operator is taken into account. The contribution of higher Landau levels of virtual electrons, along with the ground Landau level, is shown to be essential in the leading log approximation.Comment: 7 pages, LATEX, 1 PS figure, submitted to Modern Physics Letters