Interface-mediated interactions: Entropic forces of curved membranes
Soft Condensed Matter
2011-05-31 v2 Biological Physics
Abstract
Particles embedded in a fluctuating interface experience forces and torques mediated by the deformations and by the thermal fluctuations of the medium. Considering a system of two cylinders bound to a fluid membrane we show that the entropic contribution enhances the curvature-mediated repulsion between the two cylinders. This is contrary to the usual attractive Casimir force in the absence of curvature-mediated interactions. For a large distance between the cylinders, we retrieve the renormalization of the surface tension of a flat membrane due to thermal fluctuations.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1011.1221,
title = {Interface-mediated interactions: Entropic forces of curved membranes},
author = {Pierre Gosselin and Hervé Mohrbach and Martin Michael Müller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.1221},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
11 pages, 5 figures; final version, as appeared in Phys. Rev. E