Screening in semirigid polymer systems.

An expression for screening of the effective monomer interactions in semirigid polymer systems is developed. Anisotropic interactions dependent on monomer orientation are taken into account in an expansion of the bare potential in spherical harmonics. Using the method of Gaussian random fields previously applied to simple flexible polymers, the equation for the screened potential is given as an expansion in the density correlation functions of the effective chain. The effect of the polymer interactions on the persistence length and end-to-end distance of worm-like chains is calculated and shown to be small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]