Inter- and intrachain attractions in solutions of flexible polyelectrolytes at nonzero concentration

Abstract

Constant temperature molecular dynamics simulations were used to study solutions of flexible polyelectrolyte chains at nonzero concentrations with explicit counterions and unscreened Coulombic interactions. Counterion condensation, measured via the self-diffusion coefficient of the counterions, is found to increase with polymer concentration, but contrary to the prediction of the Manning theory, the renormalized charge fraction on the chains decreases with increasing Bjerrum length without showing any saturation. Scaling analysis of the radius of gyration shows that the chains are extended at low polymer concentrations and small Bjerrum lengths, while at sufficiently large Bjerrum lengths, the chains shrink to produce compact structures with exponents smaller than a Gaussian chain, suggesting the presence of attractive intrachain interactions. A careful study of the radial distribution function of the center-of-mass of the polyelectrolyte chains shows clear evidence that effective interchain attractive interactions also exist in solutions of flexible polyelectrolytes, similar to what has been found for rodlike polyelectrolytes. Our results suggest that the broad maximum observed in scattering experiments is due to clustering of chains.