Interface-mediated interactions: Entropic forces of curved membranes

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.

11 pages, 5 figures; final version, as appeared in Phys. Rev. E

References in corpus (4)

• Interface mediated interactions between particles -- a geometrical approach
• Geometry of surface mediated interactions
• Effective forces between colloids at interfaces induced by capillary wave-like fluctuations
• Anisotropies in thermal Casimir interactions: ellipsoidal colloids trapped at a fluid interface