Two Fourier methods in membrane fluctation analysis: grid-based and least-squares

Abstract

The energetics of lipid membrane deformations can be described by continuum theories for idealized fields representing lipid positions and orientations. We investigate systematic errors that arise while analyzing power spectra of these fields' thermal fluctuations. This requires an expansion in Fourier modes, which is typically done by interpolating the continuum fields on a grid and performing a finite Fourier transform. Unfortunately this discretization creates artifacts, such as spectral damping and aliasing.