 High-force worm-like chain elasticity

A strongly stretched inextensible worm-like chain has two small transverse tangent components. Its quadratic energy is $\frac{1}{2}\int [A|{\partial }_s{\mathbf{t}}_{\perp }{|}^2+f|{\mathbf{t}}_{\perp }{|}^2]ds-fL$. For a long bulk chain, the equipartition theorem assigns each Fourier mode covariance $k_{B}T/(A{q}^2+f)$. Integrating over $q$ and summing both components gives $⟨|{\mathbf{t}}_{\perp }{|}^2⟩=k_{B}T/\sqrt{Af}$, hence the extension deficit is half that value. With persistence length $L_p=A/(k_{B}T)$, the deficit is $\sqrt{k_{B}T/(4L_{p}f)}$. It requires small slopes and negligible stretching of the backbone.