Related papers: Salt-induced collapse and reexpansion of highly ch…
Polyelectrolytes such as single and double stranded DNA and many synthetic polymers undergo two structural transitions upon increasing the concentration of multivalent salt or molecules. First, the expanded-stretched chains in low…
The collapse of flexible polyelectrolytes in a solution of multivalent counterions is studied by means of a two state model. The states correspond to rod-like and spherically collapsed conformations respectively. We focus on the very dilute…
We study salt-induced charge overcompensation and charge inversion of flexible polyelectrolytes via computer simulations and demonstrate the importance of ion excluded volume. Reentrant condensation takes place when the ion size is…
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…
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…
We study conformational and electrophoretic properties of polyelectrolytes (PEs) in tetravalent salt solutions under the action of electric fields by means of molecular dynamics simulations. Chain conformations are found to have a sensitive…
Properties of polyelectrolytes in tetravalent salt solutions are intensively investigated by a coarse-grained model. The concentration of salt and the size of tetravalent counterions are found playing a decisive role on chain properties. If…
We study the complex formation between one long polyanion chain and many short oligocation chains by computer simulations. We employ a coarse-grained bead-spring model for the polyelectrolyte chains, and model explicitly the small salt…
Nucleic acids are negatively charged macromolecules and their structure properties are strongly coupled to metal ions in solutions. In this paper, the salt effects on the flexibility of single stranded (ss) nucleic acid chain ranging from…
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…
We investigate the behavior of single polyelectrolytes in multivalent salt solutions under the action of electric fields through computer simulations. The chain is unfolded in a strong electric field and aligned parallel to the field…
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…
Counterion distribution around an isolated flexible polyelectrolyte in the presence of a divalent salt is evaluated using the adsorption model [M. Muthukumar, J. Chem. Phys. {\bf 120}, 9343 (2004)] that considers Bjerrum length, salt…
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…
We investigate the complexation of a highly charged sphere with a long flexible polyelectrolyte, \textit{both negatively charged} in salt free environment. Electroneutrality is insured by the presence of divalent counterions. Using…
Ion distributions in dilute polyelectrolyte solutions are studied by means of Langevin dynamics simulations. We show that the distributions depend on the conformation of a chain while the conformation is determined by the chain stiffness…
We study the reentrant condensation of polyelectrolytes in dilute solutions of small multivalent salts, whose phase-transition mechanism remains poorly understood. Motivated by recent full atomic simulation results reported by the Caltech…
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 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…
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…