A0495
Title: Wormlike chain model and spherical spectral gap
Authors: Ho Yun - EPFL (Switzerland) [presenting]
Almond Stoecker - EPFL Lausanne (Switzerland)
Victor Panaretos - EPFL (Switzerland)
Abstract: How can the stiffness of a DNA molecule or a protein filament be precisely measured? The wormlike chain model, a foundational framework in structural biology, offers a mathematical description of these biopolymers. The central parameter of this model is called the persistence length, quantifying their bending stiffness. A connection is revealed between this quantity and the spectral gap of a diffusion operator on the sphere. Using the theory of spherical harmonics, this relationship naturally leads to a classic model in directional statistics to describe polymer conformations. Building on this observation, generalized statistical models are introduced to describe DNA sequential data and discuss compelling open questions at the intersection of statistics and molecular biology.
