Rotational dynamics of rigid, symmetric top macromolecules. Application to circular cylinders

Abstract

The formalism for the calculation of translational friction coefficients of symmetric top macromolecules presented in a previous paper [M. M. Tirado and J. García de la Torre, J. Chem. Phys. 71, 2585 (1979)] is here extended to the evaluation of rotational friction and diffusion coefficients. We show how the introduction of symmetry considerations leads to a great reduction of the computational requirements needed to solve the hydrodynamic interaction equations. We also obtain the translation–rotation coupling tensor from which the center of hydrodynamic stress can be obtained. For a rigid ring we have derived analytical solutions that reduce to those obtained by other authors when the unmodified interaction tensor is used. The general formalism is finally applied to the calculation of the rotational diffusion coefficients of circular cylinders modeled as stacks of rings and extrapolated to zero bead size. The resulting values are critically compared with those from earlier studies.