From this, we infer r c ≈ 5.65 Å. One DPD time unit corresponds to ≈ 50 ps of real elapsed time, according to previously reported mappings based on matching diffusion coefficients. Hence the adopted DPD time step of 0.01 DPD time units (see below) corresponds to ≈ 0.5 ps. This is a couple of orders larger than the typical femtosecond time step in molecular dynamics, which goes some way to explain the preference for using CG methods such as DPD for simulating surfactant self-assembly.