Flexible Polymers Also Counterattract
DOI: 10.1063/1.4796213
Gelbart, Bruinsma, Pincus, and Parsegian reply: We thank Francisco Solis and Monica Olvera de la Cruz for calling attention to the novel statistical mechanical properties that arise with flexible polyelectrolytes. We also agree that the line- and point-charge condensation behaviors we describe do not occur except in the ideal limit of infinite dilution (as we did specify in our text). At the levels of both mean-field and correlation approaches, physical issues arise with flexible chains that are related to—but different from—those treated in our article. Because of space constraints we focused primarily on rigid polyelectrolytes, and omitted many other interesting aspects of recent studies on molecular and colloidal electrostatics.
More about the authors
William M. Gelbart, 1 gelbart@chem.ucla.edu University of California, Los Angeles, US .
Robijn F. Bruinsma, 2 bruinsma@iLorentz.org University of Leiden, The Netherlands .
Philip A. Pincus, 3 fyl@physics.ucsb.edu University of California, Santa Barbara, US .
V. Adrian Parsegian, 4 aparsegi@helix.nih.gov National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, US .
