| Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 69, Number 5, March 2005
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 839 - 845 | |
| Section | Interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2004-10423-y | |
| Published online | 04 February 2005 | |
Monte Carlo calculations of the free-energy landscape of vesicle formation and growth
Department of Chemistry, Emory University - Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA
Received:
25
August
2004
Accepted:
7
January
2005
A flat-histogram Monte Carlo sampling method is used to calculate
the free-energy landscape of a simple semi-flexible triangulated
membrane model as a function of the number of vertices and the
number of free edges. Results yield the equilibrium ratio of open
(disk) and closed (vesicle) states, the free-energy barrier
between these states, and the scaling of vesicle free energy with
size N in the range from 6 to 200 vertices. Deviations from the
predictions of a simple model for the disk-vesicle transition are
found to result from the fluctuations of the edge. Vesicle free
energies are fit to the form 
, with
coefficient 
for flexible membranes (consistent
with self-avoiding branched polymer statistics) and 
for semiflexible membranes.
PACS: 87.16.Dg – Membranes, bilayers, and vesicles / 87.15.Aa – Theory and modeling; computer simulation
© EDP Sciences, 2005
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.