Electrostatic correlations and the polyelectrolyte self energy

Abstract

We address the effects of chain connectivity on electrostatic fluctuations in polyelectrolyte solutions using a field-theoretic, renormalizedGaussian fluctuation (RGF) theory. As in simple electrolyte solutions [Z.-G. Wang, Phys. Rev. E 81, 021501 (2010)], the RGF provides a unified theory for electrostatic fluctuations, accounting for both dielectric and charge correlation effects in terms of the self-energy. Unlike simple ions, the polyelectrolyte self energy depends intimately on the chain conformation, and our theory naturally provides a self-consistent determination of the response of intramolecular chain structure to polyelectrolyte and salt concentrations. The effects of the chain-conformation on the self-energy and thermodynamics are especially pronounced for flexible polyelectrolytes at low polymer and salt concentrations, where application of the wrong chain structure can lead to a drastic misestimation of the electrostatic correlations. By capturing the expected scaling behavior of chain size from dilute to semi-dilute regimes, our theory provides improved estimates of the self energy at low polymer concentrations and correctly predicts the eventual N-independence of the critical temperature and concentration of salt-free solutions of flexible polyelectrolytes. We show that the self energy can be interpreted in terms of an infinite-dilution energy μ^(el)_(m,0) and a finite concentration correlation correction μ^(corr) which tends to cancel out the former with increasing concentration.

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