A Zimm model for polyelectrolytes in an electric field

By linearizing the electro-hydrodynamic equations and using general arguments, we have recently described the deformation and drift of a polyelectrolyte in solution under the simultaneous action of an electric field and a non-electric force, and obtained results qualitatively different from previous theories. We show here how one can adapt the Zimm model to obtain a more operational description for such problems, which allows us to recover our previous results in a simple way and could be used to describe more general situations such as transient phenomena or the electrophoresis of a polyampholyte.