Summary: Electrostatics of multilamellar vesicles: Legendre expansion
and reaction­field Brownian dynamics
Veaceslav Zaloj a) and Noam Agmon
The Fritz Haber Research Center, Department of Physical Chemistry, The Hebrew University,
Jerusalem 91904, Israel
~Received 23 May 1997; accepted 10 October 1997!
An analytic expression for the electrostatic potential of a point charge within a concentric
multilayered dielectric medium is derived in terms of a Legendre expansion. A novel Brownian
dynamics algorithm for solving the Poisson equation for the reaction­field potential of charges near
dielectric interfaces is presented. To test both the computed and analytic solutions, the reaction­field
potential and self­energy of a charge within a liposome are calculated and compared. © 1998
American Institute of Physics. @S0021­9606~98!52103­4#
I. INTRODUCTION
Biological membranes are phospholipid bilayers that en­
close the aqueous contents of cells and organelles. Charge
transfer and ion diffusion processes within and across such
membranes are pivotal in a variety of biophysical processes.
For example, chloroplasts ~in green plants! and mitochondria
~in eucariotic cells! possess an internal membrane folded
over itself in a multilamellar structure. These membranes

Source: Agmon, Noam - Institute of Chemistry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Collections: Chemistry