Binding of similarly charged plates with counterions only - art. no. 078301

Similarly and highly charged plates in the presence of multivalent counteri ons attract each other and form electrostatically bound states. Using Monte -Carlo simulations, we obtain the interplate pressure in the global paramet er space. The equilibrium plate separation, where the pressure changes from attractive to repulsive, exhibits a novel unbinding transition. A systemat ic and asymptotically exact strong-coupling field theory yields the bound s tate from a competition between counterion entropy and electrostatic attrac tion, in agreement with simple scaling arguments and simulations.