19,649 research outputs found
Ion specificity and the theory of stability of colloidal suspensions
A theory is presented which allow us to accurately calculate the critical
coagulation concentration (CCC) of hydrophobic colloidal suspensions. For
positively charged particles the CCC's follow the Hofmeister (lyotropic)
series. For negatively charged particles the series is reversed. We find that
strongly polarizable chaotropic anions are driven towards the colloidal surface
by electrostatic and hydrophobic forces. Within approximately one ionic radius
from the surface, the chaotropic anions loose part of their hydration sheath
and become strongly adsorbed. The kosmotropic anions, on the other hand, are
repelled from the hydrophobic surface. The theory is quantitatively accurate
without any adjustable parameters. We speculate that the same mechanism is
responsible for the Hofmeister series that governs stability of protein
solutions.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press
Interfacial Tension of Electrolyte Solutions
A theory is presented to account for the increase in surface tension of water
in the presence of electrolyte. Unlike the original ``grand-canonical''
calculation of Onsager and Samaras, which relied on the Gibbs adsorption
isotherm and lead to a result which could only be expressed as an infinite
series, our approach is ``canonical'' and produces an analytic formula for the
excess surface tension. For small concentrations of electrolyte, our result
reduces to the Onsager-Samaras limiting law.Comment: contains two figures. Journal of Chemical Physics, in pres
Charge renormalization and phase separation in colloidal suspensions
We explore the effects of counterion condensation on fluid-fluid phase
separation in charged colloidal suspensions. It is found that formation of
double layers around the colloidal particles stabilizes suspensions against
phase separation. Addition of salt, however, produces an instability which, in
principle, can lead to a fluid-fluid separation. The instability, however, is
so weak that it should be impossible to observe a fully equilibrated
coexistence experimentally.Comment: 7 pages, Europhysics Letters (in press
Charge reversal of colloidal particles
A theory is presented for the effective charge of colloidal particles in
suspensions containing multivalent counterions. It is shown that if colloids
are sufficiently strongly charged, the number of condensed multivalent
counterion can exceed the bare colloidal charge leading to charge reversal.
Charge renormalization in suspensions with multivalent counterions depends on a
subtle interplay between the solvation energies of the multivalent counterions
in the bulk and near the colloidal surface. We find that the effective charge
is {\it not} a monotonically decreasing function of the multivalent salt
concentration. Furthermore, contrary to the previous theories, it is found that
except at very low concentrations, monovalent salt hinders the charge reversal.
This conclusion is in agreement with the recent experiments and simulations
Entropy-driven cutoff phenomena
In this paper we present, in the context of Diaconis' paradigm, a general
method to detect the cutoff phenomenon. We use this method to prove cutoff in a
variety of models, some already known and others not yet appeared in
literature, including a chain which is non-reversible w.r.t. its stationary
measure. All the given examples clearly indicate that a drift towards the
opportune quantiles of the stationary measure could be held responsible for
this phenomenon. In the case of birth- and-death chains this mechanism is
fairly well understood; our work is an effort to generalize this picture to
more general systems, such as systems having stationary measure spread over the
whole state space or systems in which the study of the cutoff may not be
reduced to a one-dimensional problem. In those situations the drift may be
looked for by means of a suitable partitioning of the state space into classes;
using a statistical mechanics language it is then possible to set up a kind of
energy-entropy competition between the weight and the size of the classes.
Under the lens of this partitioning one can focus the mentioned drift and prove
cutoff with relative ease.Comment: 40 pages, 1 figur
Casimir repulsion between metallic objects in vacuum
We give an example of a geometry in which two metallic objects in vacuum
experience a repulsive Casimir force. The geometry consists of an elongated
metal particle centered above a metal plate with a hole. We prove that this
geometry has a repulsive regime using a symmetry argument and confirm it with
numerical calculations for both perfect and realistic metals. The system does
not support stable levitation, as the particle is unstable to displacements
away from the symmetry axis.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; added references, replaced Fig.
A Neutral Polyampholyte in an ionic solution
The behavior of a neutral polyampholyte () chain with monomers, in an
ionic solution, is analyzed in the framework of the full Debye-Hckel-Bjerrum-Flory theory. A chain, that in addition to the
neutral monomers, also contains an equal number of positively and negatively
charged monomers, is dissolved in an ionic solution. For \underline{high}
concentrations of salt and at high temperatures, the exists in an extended
state. As the temperature is decreased, the electrostatic energy becomes more
relevant and at a the system collapses into a dilute globular
state, or microelectrolyte. This state contains a concentration of salt higher
than the surrounding medium. As the temperature is decreased even further,
association between the monomers of the polymer and the ions of the salt
becomes relevant and there is a crossover from this globular state to a low
temperature extended state. For \underline{low} densities of salt, the system
is collapsed for almost all temperatures and exhibits a first-order phase
transition to an extended state at an unphysical low temperature.Comment: 10 pages, Revtex with epsf, 9 Postscript figures. Submitted to PR
The effects of superconductor-stabilizer interfacial resistance on quench of a pancake coil made out of coated conductor
We present the results of numerical analysis of normal zone propagation in a
stack of coated conductors which imitates a pancake coil.
Our main purpose is to determine whether the quench protection quality of such
coils can be substantially improved by increased contact resistance between the
superconducting film and the stabilizer. We show that with increased contact
resistance the speed of normal zone propagation increases, the detection of a
normal zone inside the coil becomes possible earlier, when the peak temperature
inside the normal zone is lower, and stability margins shrink. Thus, increasing
contact resistance may become a viable option for improving the prospects of
coated conductors for high magnets applications.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Electrostatics of ions inside the nanopores and trans-membrane channels
A model of a finite cylindrical ion channel through a phospholipid membrane
of width separating two electrolyte reservoirs is studied. Analytical
solution of the Poisson equation is obtained for an arbitrary distribution of
ions inside the trans-membrane pore. The solution is asymptotically exact in
the limit of large ionic strength of electrolyte on the two sides of membrane.
However, even for physiological concentrations of electrolyte, the
electrostatic barrier sizes found using the theory are in excellent agreement
with the numerical solution of the Poisson equation. The analytical solution is
used to calculate the electrostatic potential energy profiles for pores
containing charged protein residues. Availability of a semi-exact interionic
potential should greatly facilitate the study of ionic transport through
nanopores and ion channels
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