Passage times for unbiased polymer translocation through a narrow pore

We study the translocation process of a polymer in the absence of external fields for various pore diameters b and membrane thickness L. The polymer performs Rouse and reptation dynamics. The mean translocation time <tau(t)> that the polymer needs to escape from a cell and the mean dwell time <tau(d)> that the polymer spends in the pore during the translocation process obey scaling relations in terms of the polymer length N, L, and b/R-g, where R-g is the radius of gyration for the polymer. We explain these relations using simple arguments based on polymer dynamics and the equilibrium properties of polymers.