Energetics of holes trapped in DNA

V. Apalkov, Tapash Chakraborty

Published 2005-07-07Version 1

We report on our study of the electronic properties of guanine traps in the DNA surrounded by adenines. We have shown that for a typical range of DNA parameters, formation of the bound state of two holes at the same guanine trap is possible for the GGG and GGGG traps if the hole-hole interaction is weak, which can be achieved for the DNA in solutions. The origin of the two-hole bound state is the competition between the Coulomb repulsion and the phonon mediated attraction between the holes. For the hole-phonon coupling constant $\approx 1$ two holes will be at the same trap if the on-site hole-hole repulsion energy is $\lesssim 0.9 $ eV.