2000/06/30 by Rene Messina, René Messina, Christian Holm +1 · 8 citations
Chemistry · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic physics #Charged particle #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Coulomb #Counterion #Coupling (piping) #Divalent #Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions #Geophysical and Geoelectrical Methods #Ion #Ionization #Materials science #Metastability #Microfluidic and Bio-sensing Technologies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Range (aeronautics) #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.85.872
published as Phys. Rev. Lett., VOL 85, p. 872 (24 July 2000) · REVTEX-published version
openalex publication_date 2000/07/24 · arxiv created 2000/12/04 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report a mechanism which can lead to long-range attractions between like-charged spherical macroions, stemming from the existence of metastable ionized states. We show that the ground state of a single highly charged colloid plus a few excess counterions is overcharged. For the case of two highly charged macroions in their neutralizing divalent counterion solution we demonstrate that, in the regime of strong Coulomb coupling, the counterion clouds are very likely to be unevenly distributed, leading to one overcharged and one undercharged macroion. This long-living metastable configuration in turn leads to a long-range Coulomb attraction.