Structure of polyelectrolytes in poor solvent

Abstract

We present simulations on charged polymers in poor solvent. First we\ninvestigate in detail the dilute concentration range with and without imposed\nextension constraints. The resulting necklace polymer conformations are\nanalyzed in detail. We find strong fluctuations in the number of pearls and\ntheir sizes leading only to small signatures in the form factor and the\nforce-extension relation. The scaling of the peak in the structure factor with\nthe monomer density shows a pertinent different behavior from good solvent\nchains.\n