Measuring Gaussian rigidity using curved substrates

Abstract

The Gaussian (saddle splay) rigidity of fluid membranes controls their equilibrium topology but is notoriously difficult to measure. In lipid mixtures, typical of living cells, linear interfaces separate liquid ordered (LO) from liquid disordered (LD) bilayer phases at subcritical temperatures. Here we consider such membranes supported by curved supports that thereby control the membrane curvatures. We show how spectral analysis of the fluctuations of the LO-LD interface provides a novel way of measuring the difference in Gaussian rigidity between the two phases. We provide a number of conditions for such interface fluctuations to be both experimentally measurable and sufficiently sensitive to the value of the Gaussian rigidity, whilst remaining in the perturbative regime of our analysis.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures. v2: version accepted for publication

References in corpus (5)

• Accurate determination of elastic parameters for multi-component membranes
• Stable patterns of membrane domains at corrugated substrates
• Colloidal supported lipid bilayers for self-assembly
• Interface geometry of binary mixtures on curved substrates
• Solvated Membrane Nanodiscoids: A Probe For The Effects Of Gaussian Curvature

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Arbitrary Lagrangian--Eulerian finite element method for lipid membranes
• Controlling the shape and topology of two-component colloidal membranes