Anomalous finite-size effects for the mean-squared gyration radius of Gaussian random knots

Abstract: Anomalously strong finite-size effects have been observed for the mean square radius of gyration

R_{K}^{2}

of Gaussian random polygons with a fixed knot

K

as a function of the number

N

of polygonal nodes. Through computer simulations with

N < 2000

, we find for several knots that the gyration radius

R_{K}^{2}

can be approximated by a power law:

R_{K}^{2} s i m N^{2 u_{K}^{e f f}}

, where the effective exponents

u_{K}^{e f f}

for the knots are larger than 0.5 and less than 0.6. A crossover occurs for the gyration radius of the trivial knot, when

N

is roughly equal to the characteristic length

N_{c}

of random knotting. For the asymptotic behavior of

R_{K}^{2}

, however, we find that it is consistent with the standard one with the scaling exponent 0.5. Thus, although the strong finite-size effects of

R_{K}^{2}

remain effective for extremely large values of

N

, they can be matched with the asymptotic behavior of random walks.

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