Model-free thermodynamics of fluid vesicles

Abstract

Motivated by a long-standing debate concerning the nature and interrelations of surface-tension variables in fluid membranes, we reformulate the thermodynamics of a membrane vesicle as a generic two-dimensional finite system enclosing a three-dimensional volume. The formulation is shown to require two tension variables, conjugate to the intensive constraints of area per molecule and volume-to-area ratio. We obtain the relation between these two variables in various scenarios, as well as their correspondence to other definitions of tension variables for membranes. Several controversies related to membrane tension are thereby resolved on a model-free thermodynamic level. The thermodynamic formulation may be useful also for treating large-scale properties of vesicles that are insensitive to the membrane's detailed statistical mechanics and interactions.

9 pages

References in corpus (8)

• Elastic theory of unconstrained non-Euclidean plates
• Coarse-Grained Simulations of Membranes under Tension
• Are stress-free membranes really 'tensionless'?
• Mechanical surface tension governs membrane thermal fluctuations
• Law of corresponding states for osmotic swelling of vesicles
• Critical swelling of particle-encapsulating vesicles
• Balance of forces in simulated bilayers
• Swelling of particle-encapsulating random manifolds

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Monte Carlo study of the frame, fluctuation and internal tensions of fluctuating membranes with fixed area
• Law of corresponding states for osmotic swelling of vesicles
• Permeability of phospholipid membrane for small polar molecules determined from osmotic swelling of giant phospholipid vesicles
• Small membranes under negative surface tension