FIG. 16.

Lowering ionic strength, corresponding to increasing the Debye length λ_D from (a) 6 Å to (b) 20 Å, increases off-diagonal work-of-charging entries and makes the top configurations more prominent while suppressing others, as shown in (c) and (d). In (a) and (b) W_ij magnitude codes are as in Fig. 3(a). A 1:1 electrolyte in water at 298 K corresponds to ionic strengths of (a) 257 mM and (b) 23.1 mM. In going from (a) to (b), in all categories but the top (red circles), entries above 0.05k_BT increase in number with increased λ_D. (c) Plot of log₁₀ P vs net charge, as in Fig. 5. Black dash-dotted lines show λ_D = 6 Å and blue solid lines λ_D = 20 Å. (d) Plot of log₁₀ P for the top 20 configurations; note the changed vertical scale. The black dashed line shows λ_D = 6 Å and the blue solid line λ_D = 20 Å. The contrast between changes in top- and lower-ranked probabilities is shown by the crossing of the dashed and solid curves.