Extending Fourier-space mean-field approaches to active heteropolymers

Establish whether and how Hartree–Fock-like mean-field approaches that operate purely in Fourier space, which reproduce the scaling behavior of self-avoiding, hydrodynamically coupled homopolymers, can be adapted or generalized to analyze active heteropolymers such as chromatin.

Background

Mean-field techniques reminiscent of Hartree–Fock theory, implemented in Fourier space, have successfully captured scaling behavior in self-avoiding, hydrodynamically coupled homopolymers. These approaches provide an analytically tractable framework for specific classes of polymer systems.

Active heteropolymers such as chromatin exhibit non-equilibrium driving and sequence-dependent interactions, presenting challenges for applying Fourier-space mean-field methods developed for homopolymers. The paper highlights that a clear route to using these earlier approaches for active heteropolymers has not been established and motivates the development of an alternative dynamical mean-field theory operating on pairwise contact maps.