Abstract
The electrohydrodynamic Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of a vortex sheet under the effect of background vorticity and a tangential electric field is described theoretically by an inviscid linear stability analysis. An eigenvalue equation for the complex wave velocity is obtained from which we can obtain the stability conditions. It is found, when the electric field is absent, that the background vorticity increases the growth rate of the deformed vortex sheet whose vorticity is of the same sign as the background vorticity. In the presence of a tangential electric field it is found that the electric field has a stabilizing effect and the vortex sheet is neutrally stable if the wavenumber and the electric field values are less than some critical values depending on the background vorticity.