Scaling behavior of self-avoiding tethered vesicles.

Abstract

The scaling behavior of self-avoiding tethered vesicles is analysed using shell theory and scaling arguments. For closed networks, there is a linear coupling between the out-of-plane undulation modes and the in-plane phonon modes that causes a strong suppression of out-of-plane fluctuations at iong length scales. This leads to new scaling behavior, which has important consequences for the analysis of experimental and simulation data. Molecular-dynamics simulation data for tethered vesicles are also presented and analysed using these results. We find that the exponent η, which describes the scale dependence of the bending rigidity, has the value η=0.81±0.03