POLYELECTROLYTES NEAR THE ROD LIMIT

The problem of a polyelectrolyte near the rod limit is formulated incorporating both the short-range stiffness of the backbone (the ″wormlike chain″ ) and the electrostatic interaction between segments taken as a Debye-Hueckel potential. By the use of a physically valid approximation an expression is derived for the mean-square extension length of a short polyelectrolyte chain. Some remarks are made on the relationship between the electrostatic interaction and the usual excluded-volume problem for polymer solutions.