title: Macroion correlation effects in electrostatic screening and thermodynamics of highly charged colloids.
abstract: We study macroion correlation effects on the thermodynamics of highly charged colloidal suspensions using a mean-field theory and primitive model computer simulations. We suggest a simple way to include the macroion correlations into the mean-field theory as an extension of the renormalized jellium model of Trizac and Levin [Phys. Rev. E 69, 031403 (2004)]. The effective screening parameters extracted from our mean-field approach are then used in a one-component model with macroions interacting via a Yukawa-like potential to predict macroion distributions. We find that inclusion of macroion correlations leads to a weaker screening and hence smaller effective macroion charge and lower osmotic pressure of the colloidal dispersion as compared to other mean-field models. This result is supported by comparison to primitive model simulations and experiments for charged macroions in the low-salt regime, where the macroion correlations are expected to be significant.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidad de Guanajuato, Loma del Bosque 103, 37150 León, Mexico. ramoncp@fisica.ugto.mx
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Castañeda-Priego
authors.forename: L F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Rojas-Ochoa
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lobaskin
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Mixteco-Sánchez