We compute the phase diagram of salt-free polyelectrolyte solutions using a modified Debye-Huckel Approach. We introduce the chain connectivity via the Random Phase Approximation with two important modifications. We modify the electrostatic potential at short distances to include a bound on the electrostatic attractions at the distance of closest approach between charges. This modification is shown to act as a hard core in the phase diagram of electrolyte solutions. We also introduce a cut-off on the integration of the modes of wave length smaller than the size over which the chains are strongly perturbed by the electrostatic interactions. This cut-off is shown to be essential to predict physical phase diagram in long chain solutions.
We investigate a system of dense polyelectrolytes in solution. The Langevin dynamics of the system with linearized hydrodynamics is formulated in the functional integral formalism and a transformation made to collective coordinates. Within a dynamical Random Phase Approximation (RPA) integration over the counter- and salt ions produces the Debye-Huckel-like screening of the Coulomb interactions with dependence on the frequency only as part of a more complicated coupling structure. We investigate the dynamics of the structure factor as well as the collective diffusion coefficient and comment upon the viscosity of the whole system of polymers with counterions and fluid in the simplest approximation. The coupling of the various components of the system produces nontrivial diffusive behavior. We draw conclusions about the relationship of the three length scales in the present system, i.e. the static screening length, the hydrodynamic screening length and the Debye length.
The many-body theory of interacting electrons poses an intrinsically difficult problem that requires simplifying assumptions. For the determination of electronic screening properties of the Coulomb interaction, the Random Phase Approximation (RPA) provides such a simplification. Here, we explicitly show that this approximation is justified for band structures with sizeable band gaps. This is when the electronic states responsible for the screening are energetically far away from the Fermi level, which is equivalent to a short electronic propagation length of these states. The RPA contains exactly those diagrams in which the classical Coulomb interaction covers all distances, whereas neglected vertex corrections involve quantum tunneling through the barrier formed by the band gap. Our analysis of electron-electron interactions provides a real-space analogy to Migdals theorem on the smallness of vertex corrections in electron-phonon problems. An important application is the increasing use of constrained Random Phase Approximation (cRPA) calculations of effective interactions. We find that their usage of Kohn-Sham energies already accounts for the leading local (excitonic) vertex correction in insulators.
The ground state of a many body Hamiltonian considered in the quasiparticle representation is redefined by accounting for the quasiparticle quadrupole pairing interaction. The residual interaction of the newly defined quasiparticles is treated by the QRPA. Solutions of the resulting equations exhibit specific features. In particular, there is no interaction strength where the first root is vanishing. A comparison with other renormalization methods is presented.
In this study we use non-equilibrium thermodynamics to systematically derive a phase-field model of a polyelectrolyte gel coupled to a hydrodynamic model for a salt solution surrounding the gel. The governing equations for the gel account for the free energy of the internal interfaces which form upon phase separation, the nonlinear elasticity of the polyelectrolyte network, and multi-component diffusive transport following a Stefan--Maxwell approach. The time-dependent model describes the evolution of the gel across multiple time and spatial scales and so is able to capture the large-scale solvent flux and the emergence of long-time pattern formation in the system. We explore the model for the case of a constrained gel undergoing uni-axial deformations. Numerical simulations show that rapid changes in the gel volume occur once the volume phase transition sets in, as well as the triggering of spinodal decomposition that leads to strong inhomogeneities in the lateral stresses, potentially leading to experimentally visible patterns.
By coupling a doorway state to a see of random background states, we develop the theory of doorway states in the framework of the random-phase approximation (RPA). Because of the symmetry of the RPA equations, that theory is radically different from the standard description of doorway states in the shell model. We derive the Pastur equation in the limit of large matrix dimension and show that the results agree with those of matrix diagonalization in large spaces. The complexity of the Pastur equation does not allow for an analytical approach that would approximately describe the doorway state. Our numerical results display unexpected features: The coupling of the doorway state with states of opposite energy leads to strong mutual attraction.