부산대학교 도서관

Langevin dynamics simulations are employed to explore the effects of chain stiffness and electrostatic interaction (EI) on the conformational behavior of a circular semiflexible polyelectrolyte (CSPE) in presence of trivalent counterions. We investigate the effect of bending energy b and the dimensionless Bjerrum length A on the conformational behaviour of the CSPE with a fixed chain length. The competition among the EIs, chain stiffness and entropy of the system leads to rich conformations for the CSPE. As the b is less than or equal to 50, The shape of the CSPE changes from a oblate ring to a rod at small A, then to a toroid at intermediate A, and finally to a globule at very large A. However, the globular conformation is not observed for large b. In addition, we find that the number of torus ring increases with A increase, while decreases with b increase. This study should be helpful in gaining insight into the conformational behaviour of charged biopolymer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]