The solitonic mechanism for proton transport in a hydrogen bonded chain

Abstract

We find that the proton transfer in a hydrogen bonded chain subjected to the appropriate electrostatic field behaves as a soliton. The energy of soliton and the rate constant for this proton transfer process are calculated by transition state theory. We obtain the results that the energy of soliton is considerably small compared with the band gap of the polypeptide chain and the rate constant is quite large which is enough to reveal the biological function. With these results, a few biological significances are discussed.