Electrostatic correlations: from Plasma to Biology

TL;DR

This paper reviews the significant role of electrostatic correlations across diverse systems, including plasmas, colloids, and biological structures, highlighting their thermodynamic impacts and recent recognition.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of how electrostatic correlations influence thermodynamics in systems from plasmas to biological molecules, emphasizing recent advances.

Findings

Electrostatic correlations cause phase transitions in plasmas.

They lead to charge screening and renormalization in colloids.

Correlations influence biological organization and genetic material compaction.

Abstract

Electrostatic correlations play an important role in physics, chemistry and biology. In plasmas they lead to thermodynamic instability similar to the liquid-gas phase transition of simple molecular fluids. For charged colloidal suspensions the electrostatic correlations are responsible for screening and colloidal charge renormalization. In aqueous solutions containing multivalent counterions they can lead to charge inversion and flocculation. In biological systems the correlations account for the organization of cytoskeleton and the compaction of genetic material. In spite of their ubiquity, the true importance of electrostatic correlations has become fully appreciated only quite recently. In this paper, I will review the thermodynamic consequences of electrostatic correlations in a variety of systems ranging from classical plasmas to molecular biology.