Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-10-31 v2 Materials Science
Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
The effective elasticity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes is studied in the presence of counterions, with and without added salt. The rigid polymer conformations may become unstable due to an effective attraction induced by counterion density fluctuations. Instabilities at the longest, or intermediate length scales may signal collapse to globule, or necklace states, respectively. In the presence of added-salt, a generalized electrostatic persistence length is obtained, which has a nontrivial dependence on the Debye screening length.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9901293,
title = {Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations},
author = {Ramin Golestanian and Mehran Kardar and Tanniemola B. Liverpool},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9901293},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages RevTex, 3 ps figures included using epsf, final version as appeared in PRL