Conformational properties and static structure factor of polyelectrolyte solutions

A theory is presented for the conformational properties and static structure factor of polyelectrolyte solutions. Predictions of the theory for the mean square end-to-end distance and static structure factor are in very good agreement with molecular dynamics simulations. The theory predicts that chain collapse occurs at concentrations much smaller than the overlap threshold concentration. The static structure factor displays a peak at small wave vectors which diminishes in intensity and moves to higher wave vectors as the concentration or charge fraction is increased. The scaling of the peak position with concentration and charge fraction is consistent with experiments.