Universal Force Correlations in an RNA-DNA Unzipping Experiment

Abstract

We study unzipping of a complementary RNA-DNA helix applied to an external force, focusing on the force-force correlations. While at the microscopic level these are given by the sequence, the experiment measures effective, macroscopic correlations. The latter are sequence-independent, i.e. universal, and constitute the central object of the underlying field theory of disordered systems. Comparing field-theory predictions and the exact solution of a 1-d toy model with the experiment, we find an excellent agreement, confirming fundamental theoretical concepts via a biologically inspired experiments.