Related papers: Conformational Instability of Rodlike Polyelectrol…
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…
The persistence length of a single, strongly charged, stiff polyelectrolyte chain is investigated theoretically. Path integral formulation is used to obtain the effective electrostatic interaction between the monomers. We find significant…
The persistence length of a single, intrinsically rigid polyelectrolyte chain, above the Manning condensation threshold is investigated theoretically in presence of added salt. Using a loop expansion method, the partition function is…
A new quantitative theory for polyelectrolytes in salt free dilute solutions is developed. Depending on the electrostatic interaction strength, polyelectrolytes in solutions can undergo strong stretching (with polyelectrolyte dimension…
Starting with a model Hamiltonian, we study using the uniform expansion method conformational behavior of polyelectrolytes in the presence and absence of salt. The uniform expansion method yields all the important local length scales in the…
We present results of molecular dynamics simulations of strong, flexible polyelectrolyte chains in solution with added salt. The effect of added salt on the polyelectrolyte chain structure is fully treated for the first time as a function…
We report on a study of the shape of a stiff, charged rod that is subjected to equal and opposite force couples at its two ends. Unlike a neutral elastic rod, which forms a constant curvature configuration under such influences, the charged…
We present a theory for the equilibrium structure of polyelectrolyte solutions. The main element is a simple, new optimization scheme that allows theories such as the random phase approximation (RPA) to handle the harsh repulsive forces…
Polyelectrolytes in poor solvents show a necklace structure where collapsed polymer pearls are linked to stretched strings. In the present paper the elasticity of such chains is studied in detail. Different deformation regimes are…
We present a systematic statistical mechanical analysis of the conformational properties of a stiff polyelectrolyte chain with intrachain attractions that are due to counterion correlations. We show that the mean-field solution corresponds…
Knots on ring polymers tend to be tight. For knots on charged polymers (polyelectrolytes), electrostatic repulsion among the monomers is considered to enhance the persistence length and further localize the knots. However, the effects of…
We study the salt-dependent conformations of dilute flexible polyelectrolytes in solution via computer simulations. Low concentrations of multivalent salt induce the known conformational collapse of individual polyelectrolyte chains, but as…
According to classical electrolyte theories interactions in dilute (low ion density) electrolytes decay exponentially with distance, with the Debye screening length the characteristic length-scale. This decay length decreases monotonically…
The electrostatic stability of electron-positron plasmas is investigated in the point-dipole and Z-pinch limits of dipole geometry. The kinetic dispersion relation for sub-bounce-frequency instabilities is derived and solved. For the…
We consider the complexation of highly charged semiflexible polyelectrolytes with oppositely charged macroions. On the basis of scaling arguments we discuss how the resulting complexes depend on the persistence length of the…
We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations of a highly charged flexible polyelectrolyte (PE) chain in a poor solvent for the case when the chain is in a collapsed state and the electrostatic interactions, characterized by the…
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…
Light scattering and viscometric measurements on weak polyelectrolytes show two important aspects of counterion condensation, namely, non-monotonic variation in the polyelectrolyte size with the increase in the electrostatic strength, and,…
Dilute solutions of strongly charged polymer electrolytes undergo, upon addition of multivaltent salt to the solutions, a phase transition from extended conformations to collapsed or bundled ones. Upon further addition of salt they…
A lattice of uniformly charged, infinitesimally thin, rods decorated with an ordered array of counterions exhibits anomalous behavior as the spacing between the rods is varied. In particular, the counterion lattice undergoes a sequence of…