DYNAMICS AND CONFORMATIONAL PROPERTIES OF POLYAMPHOLYTES IN EXTERNAL ELECTRICAL FIELDS

In this work we report first analytical results on the dynamics and co nformational properties of polyampholytes (PAs, polymers containing po sitive and negative charges) in the presence of external electrical fi elds. In terms of the Rouse model of polymer dynamics and in the so-ca lled weak coupling limit we obtain for PAs explicitly the mean-square displacement both of the center of mass and of individual beads, and a lso determine the PAs' equilibrium end-to-end distance. For a singly c harged PA we also relate the findings to a fractional differential equ ation. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.