DYNAMICS AND CONFORMATIONAL PROPERTIES OF POLYAMPHOLYTES IN EXTERNAL ELECTRICAL FIELDS - INFLUENCE OF THE CHARGE-DISTRIBUTION

In the present work we study the dynamics and conformational propertie s of polyampholytes (PAs, polymers containing positive and negative ch arges) in the presence of external electrical fields. In terms of the Rouse model of polymer dynamics we obtain for PAs in the so-called wea k coupling limit explicitly the mean square displacement both of the c enter of mass and of individual beads, and the PAs' end-to-end distanc e. We study both ordered and also random charge distributions along th e chains; in the latter case we also consider the role of different co rrelation lengths.