  Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the translocation of a polymer into
and out of a ellipsoidal cavity through a narrow pore. We measure the polymer
free energy F as a function of a translocation coordinate, s, defined to be the
number of bonds that have entered the cavity. To study polymer insertion, we
consider the case of a driving force acting on monomers inside the pore, as
well as monomer attraction to the cavity wall. We examine the changes to F(s)
upon variation in the shape anisometry and volume of the cavity, the polymer
length, and the strength of the interactions driving the insertion. For
athermal systems, the free energy functions are analyzed using a scaling
approach, where we treat the confined portion of the polymer to be in the
semi-dilute regime. The free energy functions are used with the Fokker-Planck
equation to measure mean translocation times, as well as translocation time
distributions. We find that both polymer ejection and insertion is faster for
ellipsoidal cavities than for spherical cavities. The results are in
qualitative agreement with those of a Langevin dynamics study in the case of
ejection but not for insertion. The discrepancy is likely due to
out-of-equilibrium conformational behaviour that is not accounted for in the FP
approach
