Polyelectrolyte-colloid complexes: polarizability and effective interaction

We theoretically study the polarizability and the interactions of neutral complexes consisting of a semi-flexible polyelectrolyte adsorbed onto an oppositely charged spherical colloid. In the systems we studied, the bending energy of the chain is small compared to the Coulomb energy and the chains are always adsorbed on the colloid. We observe that the polarizability is large for short chains and small electrical fields and shows a non-monotonic behavior with the chain length at fixed charge density. The polarizability has a maximum for a chain length equal to half of the circumference of the colloid. For long chains we recover the polarizability of a classical conducting sphere. For short chains, the existence of a permanent dipole moment of the complexes leads to a van der Waal's-type long-range attraction between them. This attractive interaction vanishes for long chains (i.e., larger than the colloidal size), where the permanent dipole moment is negligible. For short distances the complexes interact with a deep short-ranged attraction which is due to energetic bridging for short chains and entropic bridging for long chains. Exceeding a critical chain length eventually leads to a pure repulsion. This shows that the stabilization of colloidal suspensions by polyelectrolyte adsorption is strongly dependent on the chain size relative to the colloidal size: for long chains the suspensions are always stable (only repulsive forces between the particles), while for mid-sized and short chains there is attraction between the complexes and a salting-out can occur.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure

Quark mass effects in the thermodynamical properties of an extended (P)NJL model

We analyze the thermodynamical properties of a system of strongly interacting particles at vanishing quark chemical potential in the framework of a recently developed extension of the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio Model. In addition to eight quark interactions terms, non-canonical terms which explicitly break chiral symmetry up to the same order in a $1/N_c$ expansion ($N_c$ number of colors) are included. A recently proposed Polyakov potential is considered and the results are compared to lattice QCD data resulting in a favorable scenario for the recent model variants.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of "8th International Conference on Quarks and Nuclear Physics (QNP2018)

The phase diagram in the SU(3) Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with 't Hooft and eight-quark interactions

It is shown that the endpoint of the first order transition line which merges into a crossover regime in the phase diagram of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model, extended to include the six-quark 't Hooft and eight-quark interaction Lagrangians, is pushed towards vanishing chemical potential and higher temperatures with increasing strength of the OZI-violating eight-quark interactions. We clarify a connection between the location of the endpoint in the phase diagram and the mechanism of chiral symmetry breaking at the quark level. Constraints on the coupling strengths based on groundstate stability and physical considerations are explained.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, prepared for the proceedings of Hadron 2009 - XIII International Conference on Hadron Spectroscopy, November 29 - December 4, Florida State University (USA

The Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with six and eight quark interactions

The extension of the Nambu-Jona-Lasino Model with six and eight quark interactions to include the Polyakov loop is analysed. Several interesting features are determined to be an effect of the choice of the regularization procedure. The use of a Pauli-Villars covariant regularization enables a coherent and correct description of several quantities.Comment: 3 pages, 6 figures, to appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum IX, August 30- September 3 2010, Madrid (Spain