  We consider two versions of a simple evolutionary algorithm model for protein
folding at temperature zero: the (1+1)-EA on the LeadingOnes problem. In this
schematic model, the structure of the protein, which is encoded as a bit-string
of length n, is evolved to its native conformation through a stochastic pathway
of sequential contact bindings.
  We study the asymptotic behavior of the hitting time, in the mean case
scenario, under two different mutations: the one flip which flips a unique bit
chosen uniformly at random in the bit-string, and the Bernoulli flip which
flips each bit in the bit-string independently with probability c/n. For each
algorithm we prove a law of large numbers, a central limit theorem and compare
the performance of the two models.
