ABSTRACT
L INTRODUCTION The study of conformational transition (i.e., coil-globule transition) of mac romolecules is one of the central problems in polymer science [1-4].
It is known [4] that the presence of even a small fraction of charged links drastically changes the picture of conformational transition. The conforma tional transitions in polyelectrolyte systems are much more pronounced than the coil-globule transition of electoneutral macromolecules. The volume of charged macromolecules on the course of coil-globule transition can un dergo a hundredfold or even thousandfold decrease. The coil-globule tran sition of polyelectrolyte macromolecules in most cases can be realized as a first-order phase transition with a jump in the macromolecular size.
