| Abstract
| - Coarse-grained, implicit solvent molecular simulations have been conducted to investigate the structure and interactionsof L64 Pluronic micelles in aqueous solutions. Simulations of an L64 solution beginning with monodisperse micelles(aggregation number Nagg = 40 chains) resulted in a narrow Gaussian distribution of Nagg centered around 40. Whilenot fully equilibrated, this distribution supports the supposition that L64 micelles with Nagg = 40 are representativeof the conditions considered and model employed. Detailed analysis of intramicellar monomers distribution andmicelle shapes revealed that L64 micelles have a scalene ellipsoidal shape. Additional simulations of solutions containing125 micelles constrained to have Nagg = 40 at polymer volume fractions of 0.024 and 0.110 were performed to studymicelle−micelle structure factor, single micelle form factor, and total scattering intensity. The ability of variousmodels utilized in analysis of scattering profiles in micellar solutions to describe the structure of the model L64solutions was investigated. Investigation of the potential of mean force between two micelles reveals that the interactionsbetween micelles are repulsive but on a length scale smaller than the mean micelle diameter, indicating that the micellarshape fluctuations are important in determining intermicellar interactions.
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