Related papers: The Effect of Explicit Polar Species on Conformati…
We explore the mechanical response of a single polyelectrolyte chain under tension in good and poor solvents using a combination of simulation and theory. In poor solvents, where the equilibrium state of the chain is a collapsed globule, we…
Biomolecular condensates such as membraneless organelles, underpinned by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), are important for physiological function, with electrostatics -- among other interaction types -- being a prominent force in…
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…
We investigate the effects of chain flexibility on the self-assembly behavior of symmetric diblock copolymers (BCPs) when they are confined as a thin film between two surfaces. Employing worm-like chain (WLC) self-consistent field theory,…
We investigate the electrostatic contribution to the persistence length of a semiflexible polymer chain whose segments interact via a screened Debye-H\" uckel dipolar interaction potential. We derive the expressions for the renormalized…
Understanding the effect of inhomogeneity on the charge regulation and dielectric properties, and how it depends on the conformational characteristics of the macromolecules is a long-standing problem. In order to address this problem, we…
We report molecular dynamics simulations of a hydrophobic polymer-chain in aqueous solution between $260 {K}$ and $420 {K}$ at pressures of $1 {bar}$, $3000 {bar}$, and $4500 {bar}$. The simulations reveal a hydrophobically collapsed state…
We explore theoretically the modifications to the interactions between charged surfaces across an ionic solution caused by the presence of dielectric polymers. Although the chains are neutral, the polymer physics and the electrostatics are…
The behavior of polyelectrolytes and polyampholytes in semi-dilute solutions is investigated theoretically. Various statistical charge distributions along the polyelectrolyte chains are considered: smeared, annealed, permuted and quenched.…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a charged polymer in a good solvent in the regime where the chain is collapsed. We analyze the dependence of the gyration radius $R_g $ on the reduced Bjerrum length $\ell_B$ and find…
We study the behavior of single linear polyelectrolytes condensed by trivalent salt under the action of electric fields through computer simulations. The chain is unfolded when the strength of the electric field is stronger than a critical…
The nature of electrostatic interactions involving polyanions modulate the properties of both synthetic and biological macromolecules. Although intensely studied for decades the interplay of many length scales has prevented a complete…
We study the bending rigidity of highly charged stiff polyelectrolytes, for both a single chain and many chains forming a bundle. A theory is developed to account for the interplay between competitive binding of counterions and charge…
Stretching dynamics of polymers in microfluidics is of particular interest for polymer scientists. As a charged polymer, a polyelectrolyte can be deformed from its coiled equilibrium configuration to an extended chain by applying uniform or…
Dynamics of a polymer chain in solution gets significantly affected by the temperature and the frictional forces arising due to solvent viscosity. Here, using an explicit solvent framework for polymer simulation with the liberty to tune the…
We present a statistical model of a dilute polymer solution in good solvent in the presence of low-molecular weight cosolvent. We investigate the conformational changes of the polymer induced by a change of the cosolvent concentration and…
We study the effects of charge-regulated acid/base equilibrium on the swelling of polyelectrolyte gels, by considering a combination of the Poisson-Boltzmann theory and a two-site charge-regulation model based on the Langmuir adsorption…
In this study, we investigate the suitability of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations to predict the dynamics of polymer chains in dilute polymer solutions, where the chain is represented by a set of beads connected by almost…
We investigate the unfolding of single polyelectrolyte (PE) chains collapsed by trivalent salt under the action of alternating-current (AC) electric fields through computer simulations and theoretical scaling. The results show that a…
Homopolymer chain with beads forming pairwise reversible bonds is a well-known model in polymer physics. We studied kinetics of homopolymer chain collapse, which was induced by pairwise reversible bonds formation. We compared kinetic…