Measuring Gaussian rigidity using curved substrates
Abstract
The Gaussian (saddle splay) rigidity of fluid membranes controls their equilibrium topology but is notoriously difficult to measure. In lipid mixtures, typical of living cells, linear interfaces separate liquid ordered (LO) from liquid disordered (LD) bilayer phases at subcritical temperatures. Here we consider such membranes supported by curved supports that thereby control the membrane curvatures. We show how spectral analysis of the fluctuations of the LO-LD interface provides a novel way of measuring the difference in Gaussian rigidity between the two phases. We provide a number of conditions for such interface fluctuations to be both experimentally measurable and sufficiently sensitive to the value of the Gaussian rigidity, whilst remaining in the perturbative regime of our analysis.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2005.06393,
title = {Measuring Gaussian rigidity using curved substrates},
author = {Piermarco Fonda and Sami C. Al-Izzi and Luca Giomi and Matthew S. Turner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.06393},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 figures. v2: version accepted for publication