Enhanced diffusion and universal Rouse-like scaling of an active polymer in poor solvent

By means of Brownian dynamics simulations we study the steady-state dynamic properties of a flexible active polymer in a poor solvent condition. Our results show that the effective diffusion constant of the polymer Deff gets significantly enhanced as activity increases, much like in active particles. The simulation data are in agreement with a theoretically constructed Rouse model of active polymer, demonstrating that irrespective of the strength of activity, the long-time dynamics of the polymer chain is characterized by a universal Rouse-like scaling Deff~N^-1, where N is the chain length. We argue that the presence of hydrodynamic interactions will only have an insignificant effect on the observed scaling behavior.