Screening in short polyelectrolyte chains. A Monte Carlo study

A general definition of effective screening in a polyelectrolyte chain is introduced to replace the definition formulated in a previous article. Using the new definition it is shown that the number of chain beads N affects screening at the investigated range of N. Additional evidence to our concept of equivalence of polyelectrolyte chains with added salt and partially charged bare chains is demonstrated by means of various parameters. Comparison of configurations obtained by different means is considered as well as which parameters are sufficient for the comparison.