Related papers: Polyelectrolyte stars in planar confinement
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 studied polyelectrolyte adsorption on a repulsive charged surface by scaling analysis. At low ionic strength and low surface charge density in which a single polyelectrolyte is able to be adsorbed onto the surface, different regimes in…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the local dynamics of counterion-charged polymer association at charge densities above and below the counterion condensation threshold. Surprisingly, the counterions form weakly-interacting…
We investigate, using 3D hydrodynamic simulations, the fragmentation of pressure-confined, vertically stratified, self-gravitating gaseous layers. The confining pressure is either thermal pressure acting on both surfaces, or thermal…
We consider the self-force acting on a pointlike (electromagnetic or conformal-scalar) charge held fixed on a spacetime with a spherically-symmetric mass distribution of constant density (the Schwarzschild star). The Schwarzschild interior…
We consider an electrolyte solution confined by semipermeable membranes in contact with a salt-free solvent. Membranes are uncharged, but since small counter-ions leak-out into infinite salt-free reservoirs, we observe a distance-dependent…
Inspired by recent experiments and simulations on pattern formation in biomolecules by optical tweezers, a theoretical description based on reference interaction site model (RISM) integral equation method is developed to calculate the…
We consider a statistical mechanical model of a generic flexible polyelectrolyte, comprised of identically charged monomers with long range electrostatic interactions, and short-range interactions quantified by a disorder field along the…
In this work, we consider a semi-dilute solution of identical star-polymers, made of attached flexible long polymer chains of the same polymerization degree N. We first compute the effective pair-potential between star-polymers. Such a…
We theoretically study the polarizability and the interactions of neutral complexes consisting of a semi-flexible polyelectrolyte adsorbed onto an oppositely charged spherical colloid. In the systems we studied, the bending energy of the…
Star polymers are within the most topologically entangled macromolecules. For a star to move the current theory is that one arm must retract to the branch point. The probability of this event falls exponentially with molecular weight, and a…
In solutions of star-branched polyelectrolytes, electrostatic interactions between charged arms on neighboring stars can compete with intra-star interactions and rotational entropy to induce anisotropy in the orientational distribution of…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, it is demonstrated that monovalent counterions can induce aggregation of similarly charged rod-like polyelectrolyte chains. The critical value of the linear charge density for aggregation is shown to be…
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…
The recent experimental fabrication of monolayer and few-layer C60 polymers paves the way for synthesizing two-dimensional cluster-assembled materials. Compared to atoms with the SO(3) symmetry, clusters as superatoms (e.g., C60) have an…
We study effective three-particle interactions between valence electrons, which are induced by the core polarization. Such interactions are enhanced when valence orbitals have strong overlap with the outermost core shell, in particular for…
We present a set of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of strongly charged, flexible polyelectrolyte chains under poor solvent conditions in a salt free solution. Structural properties of the chains and of the solutions are reported. By…
The depletion interaction between two parallel repulsive walls confining a dilute solution of long and flexible polymer chains is studied by field-theoretic methods. Special attention is paid to self-avoidance between chain monomers…
We report on the linear viscoelastic properties of mixtures comprising multiarm star (as model soft colloids) and long linear chain homopolymers in a good solvent. In contrast to earlier works, we investigated symmetric mixtures (with a…
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…