POLYELECTROLYTE MANIFOLDS

We present the first scaling theory describing the equilibrium conform ations of polyelectrolyte manifolds with arbitrary connectivity. Rando mly branched polyelectrolytes and charged polymerized membranes are co nsidered as particular cases. The most important result of the analysi s is the dependence of the fractal dimension of charged manifolds on t he mass of the clusters: the fractal dimension of large clusters is eq ual to their spectral dimension whereas for small clusters it appears to be smaller. This type of behaviour is related to the effect of char ge renormalization and is unknown for ordinary neutral fractal objects . Thus the interplay between the counterions distribution and the conn ectivity is demonstrated.