ON THE ELECTROSTATIC CONTRIBUTION TO THE PERSISTENCE LENGTH OF FLEXIBLE POLY-ELECTROLYTES

Quasi-elastic light scattering methods were used to study the dynamics of dilute solutions of high molecular weight (M//P equals 10**7 daltons) poly(acrylate) for left bracket KCl right bracket //a//d//d//e//d equals 0. 00, 0. 05, and 0. 10 M. The correlation functions were analyzed by a third-order cumulant and an overlay histogram with exponential sampling methods of analysis. The histograms exhibited a bimodal distribution. It is argued that the fast mode evident in the histograms is associated with the pure translational diffusion process for PAA-K and that the slow mode may be associated with hindred diffusion through cages found by neighboring polyions.