Kinetics of the polymer collapse transition: The role of hydrodynamics

We investigate numerically the dynamical behavior of a polymer chain collapsing in a dilute solution. The rate of collapse is measured with and without the presence of hydrodynamic interactions. We find that hydrodynamic interactions accelerate polymer collapse. We present a scaling theory describing the physical process responsible for the collapse kinetics. Predicted collapse times in a hydrodynamic (tau(H)similar to N-4/3) and a Brownian heat bath (tau(B)similar to N-2) agree well with the numerical results (tau(H)similar to N-1.40 +/- 0.08 and tau(B)similar to N-1.89 +/- 0.09) where N denotes chain length. The folding kinetics of Go models of proteins is also examined. We show that for these systems, where many free energy minima compete, hydrodynamics has little effect on the kinetics.