Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations

Ramin Golestanian; Mehran Kardar; Tanniemola B. Liverpool

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.4456

Collapse of Stiff Polyelectrolytes due to Counterion Fluctuations

Ramin Golestanian, Mehran Kardar, and Tanniemola B. Liverpool

Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4456 – Published 31 May 1999

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 (intermediate) length scales may signal a collapse to globule (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.

Received 26 January 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.4456

Authors & Affiliations

Ramin Golestanian^1,2,3,4, Mehran Kardar², and Tanniemola B. Liverpool^3,4,*

¹Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences, Zanjan 45195-159, Iran
²Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
³Max-Planck-Institut für Polymerforschung, D-55021 Mainz, Germany
⁴Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-4030