Guest charges in an electrolyte: renormalized charge, long- and short-distance behavior of the electric potential and density profile

Abstract

We complement a recent exact study by L. Samaj on the properties of a guest charge $Q$ immersed in a two-dimensional electrolyte with charges $+1/-1$. In particular, we are interested in the behavior of the density profiles and electric potential created by the charge and the electrolyte, and in the determination of the renormalized charge which is obtained from the long-distance asymptotics of the electric potential. In Samaj's previous work, exact results for arbitrary coulombic coupling $β$ were obtained for a system where all the charges are points, provided $βQ<2$ and $β< 2$. Here, we first focus on the mean field situation which we believe describes correctly the limit $β\to 0$ but $βQ$ large. In this limit we can study the case when the guest charge is a hard disk and its charge is above the collapse value $βQ>2$. We compare our results for the renormalized charge with the exact predictions and we test on a solid ground some conjectures of the previous study. Our study shows that the exact formulas obtained by Samaj for the renormalized charge are not valid for $βQ>2$, contrary to a hypothesis put forward by Samaj. We also determine the short-distance asymptotics of the density profiles of the coions and counterions near the guest charge, for arbitrary coulombic coupling. We show that the coion density profile exhibit a change of behavior if the guest charge becomes large enough ($βQ\geq 2-β$). This is interpreted as a first step of the counterion condensation (for large coulombic coupling), the second step taking place at the usual Manning--Oosawa threshold $βQ=2$.