Department of Physics Papers
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
10-1993
Embargo Date
July 1993
Publication Source
Journal de Physique II
Volume
3
Issue
10
Start Page
1535
Last Page
1569
DOI
10.1051/jp2:1993218
Abstract
We study the effects of chiral constituent molecules on the macroscopic shapes attained by lipid bilayer membranes. Such fluid membranes are beautiful examples of statistical ensembles of random shapes~ sometimes coupled to in-plane order. We analyze them with methods of continuum elasticity theory, generalizing the well-known Canham-Helfrich model, and in particular incorporate the effects of thermal fluctuations. The condition that coordinate choice be immaterial greatly constrains the possible forms of the statistical weights in these systems, leading to very few independent couplings and hence physically simple models. Thermal fluctuations effectively reduce the chirality of a membrane at long scales leading to an anomalous scaling relation for the radius of bilayer tubules and helices as a function of chirality. En route to this conclusion we develop a perturbative calculation scheme, paying particular attention to the functional measure needed to describe fluctuations covariantly
Recommended Citation
Nelson, P. C., & Powers, T. (1993). Renormalization of Chiral Couplings in Tilted Bilayer Membranes. Journal de Physique II, 3 (10), 1535-1569. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/jp2:1993218
Date Posted: 01 May 2017
This document has been peer reviewed.