Affiliation:
1. Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milan, Italy
Abstract
We study the equilibrium shapes of a lipid membrane, attached to a fixed circular substrate. We show how the weakening of the boundary conditions is able to break the axial symmetry of the optimal equilibrium configuration. We derive the critical threshold of the symmetry-breaking transition, and obtain the analytical expression of the free-energy minimizers in the quasi-planar approximation. Metastable states turn out to contain contributions only from the axisymmetric mode, and at most one single non-trivial Fourier mode.
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Engineering,General Mathematics
Cited by
3 articles.
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