Structure of polyelectrolytes in poor solvent

We present molecular-dynamics simulations on strongly charged polyelectrolytes in poor solvent. The resulting pearl necklace conformations are analyzed in detail. Fluctuations in the number of pearls and their sizes lead only to small signatures in the form factor and the force-extension relation, which is a severe obstacle for experimental observations. We find that the position of the first peak in the structure factor varies with the monomer density as approximate to rho(m)(0.35) for all densities. This is a qualitative difference to polyelectrolyte solutions in good solvent which scale as rho(m)(1/3) and rho(m)(1/2) in the dilute and semi-dilute concentration regime, respectively