Related papers: Floppy Membranes
The domain formation of curvature-inducing molecules, such as peripheral or transmembrane proteins and conical surfactants, is studied in thermal equilibrium and nonequilibrium steady states using meshless membrane simulations. These…
To explain the appearance of heterogeneities in the plasma membrane, I propose a hypothesis which begins with the observation that fluctuations in the membrane curvature are coupled to the difference between compositions in one leaf and the…
We explore how thermal fluctuations affect the mechanics of thin amorphous spherical shells. In flat membranes with a shear modulus, thermal fluctuations increase the bending rigidity and reduce the in-plane elastic moduli in a…
We examine a two-dimensional Fermi liquid with a Fermi surface which touches the Umklapp surface first at the 4 points $(\pm \pi/2, \pm \pi/2)$ as the electron density is increased. Umklapp processes at the 4 patches near $(\pm \pi/2,…
A force-free surface (FFS) ${\cal S}$ is a sharp boundary separating a void from a region occupied by a charge-separated force-free plasma. It is proven here under very general assumptions that there is on ${\cal S}$ a simple relation…
Nontrivial infinitesimal bendings for a class of two-dimensional surfaces are constructed. The surfaces considered here are orientable; compact; with boundary; have positive curvature everywhere except at finitely many planar points; and…
We investigate the steady states and dynamical instabilities resulting from ``particles'' depositing on (fusion) and pinching off (fission) a fluid membrane. These particles could be either small lipid vesicles or isolated proteins. In the…
We analyze the stability of biological membrane tubes, with and without a base flow of lipids. Membrane dynamics are completely specified by two dimensionless numbers: the well-known F\"oppl--von K\'arm\'an number $\Gamma$ and the recently…
We study the mechanical buckling of a two dimensional membrane coated with a thin layer of superfluid. It is seen that a singularity (vortex or anti-vortex defect) in the phase of the quantum order parameter, distorts the membrane metric…
The standing surface waves in a rectangular vertically oscillating vessel filled with water (Faraday waves) in the presence of a floating elastic sheet are studied experimentally and theoretically. The threshold amplitude of the instability…
The effect of strong anisotropy on the Fermi line of a system of correlated electrons is studied in two space dimensions, using renormalization group techniques. Inflection points change the scaling exponents of the couplings, enhancing the…
We present a theory for the elasticity of cross-linked stiff polymer networks. Stiff polymers, unlike their flexible counterparts, are highly anisotropic elastic objects. Similar to mechanical beams stiff polymers easily deform in bending,…
Thin cylindrical tethers are common lipid bilayer membrane structures, arising in situations ranging from micromanipulation experiments on artificial vesicles to the dynamic structure of the Golgi apparatus. We study the shape and formation…
We set up the statistical mechanics for a nearly flat, thermally equilibrated fluid membrane, attached to an elastic network through one of its sides. We predict that the resulting structural (inversion) asymmetry of the membrane, notably…
We calculate the fluctuation spectrum of the shape of a lipid vesicle or cell exposed to a nonthermal source of noise. In particular we take into account constraints on the membrane area and the volume of fluid that it encapsulates when…
Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…
The quantitative understanding of membranes is still rooted in work performed in the 1970s by Helfrich and others, concerning amphiphilic bilayers. However, most biological membranes contain a wide variety of nonamphiphilic molecules too.…
We derive the equations of motion for relativistic elastic membranes, that is, two-dimensional elastic bodies whose internal energy depends only on their stretching, starting from a variational principle. We show how to obtain conserved…
Biological membranes and vesicles play a central role in living systems, forming dynamic interfaces that regulate cellular organization and function. Classical descriptions of membrane mechanics that are rooted in equilibrium statistical…
In this paper, we introduce the notion of a marginal tube, which is a hypersurface foliated by marginal surfaces. It generalises the notion of a marginally trapped tube and several notions of black hole horizons, for example trapping…