Moments and distribution function of polyelectrolyte chains.

It is demonstrated that the moments R(2k) of the end-to-end distance distribution function f(r) of charged wormlike chains with excluded volume effects in solution with added salt, in the Debye-Huckel approximation, obey a remarkably simple relation. It is shown that the R(2k) can be expressed as weighted sums of the corresponding moments of ideal wormlike chains. As an application of this method, we show that the Fourier transform of f(r) can also be represented by a superposition of distribution functions of ideal chains. The quantities so calculated are compared with the results of Monte Carlo simulations. Excellent agreement between them is observed. (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics.