Small mesoscopic particles in dilute and semidilute solutions of nonadsorbing polymers

Abstract

An overview is given of a study focusing on the polymer-induced depletion interactions between two particles and between a particle and a wall for dilute and semidilute solutions of long flexible polymer chains in a good solvent and mesoscopic spherical particles with a small radius R. Results are discussed which contain no free parameters or unknown prefactors and apply for arbitrary interchain overlap ranging from zero to infinity.