Thermodynamics of vesicle growth and instability
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-13 v1 Soft Condensed Matter
Abstract
We describe the growth of vesicles, due to the accretion of lipid molecules to their surface, in terms of linear irreversible thermodynamics. Our treatment differs from those previously put forward by consistently including the energy of the membrane in the thermodynamic description. We calculate the critical radius at which the spherical vesicle becomes unstable to a change of shape in terms of the parameters of the model. The analysis is carried out both for the case when the increase in volume is due to the absorption of water and when a solute is also absorbed through the walls of the vesicle.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0810.5505,
title = {Thermodynamics of vesicle growth and instability},
author = {Duccio Fanelli and Alan J. McKane},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.5505},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
To be published in Phys. Rev. E