Multiphase biological membranes

Abstract: Biological membranes are thin layers of lipid molecules. Mechanically, they can be described as incompressible viscous fluid surfaces with bending elasticity. The equilibrium shapes of homogeneous membranes minimize the Canham-Helfrich energy under area and enclosed volume constraints. In particular, this variational model explains the typical biconcave shape of human red blood cells. Configurations of heterogeneous biomembranes also feature an intriguing coupling effect between composition and geometry, which originates from their inherent fluidity. In this talk, we introduce these models and present an existence result for multiphase membranes with sharp phase interfaces, obtained in the framework of oriented curvature varifolds.

MathematicsPhysics

Audience: researchers in the topic

Nečas Seminar on Continuum Mechanics

Series comments: This seminar was founded on December 14, 1966.

Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Sokolovská 83, Prague 8. If not written otherwise, we will meet on Mondays at 15:40 in lecture hall K3 (2nd floor).