Symmetry effects in electrostatic interactions between two arbitrarily charged spherical shells in the Debye-Huckel approximation

Inhomogeneous charge distributions have important repercussions on electrostatic interactions in systems of charged particles but are often difficult to examine theoretically. We investigate how electrostatic interactions are influenced by patchy charge distributions exhibiting certain point group symmetries. We derive a general form of the electrostatic interaction energy of two permeable, arbitrarily charged spherical shells in the Debye-Huckel approximation and apply it to the case of particles with icosahedral, octahedral, and tetrahedral inhomogeneous charge distributions. We analyze in detail how charge distribution symmetry modifies the interaction energy and find that local charge inhomogeneities reduce the repulsion of two overall equally charged particles, while sufficient orientational variation in the charge distribution can turn the minimum interaction energy into an attraction. Additionally, we show that larger patches and thus lower symmetries and wave numbers result in bigger attraction given the same variation. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4790576]