1998-06-08
16:45 at HPH G5 (ETH Hoenggerberg)

Statistical physics of fluid membranes

Udo Seifert

MPI-KG, Teltow, Berlin

Fluid membranes consist of a bilayer of amphiphilic molecules. They serve as a model system for more complex biological membranes. Governed by the interplay between curvature energy, thermal fluctuations and hydrodynamic damping, they have become a paradigmatic system within soft matter physics. Phenomena like conformal diffusion, the pearling instability and shape changes induced by shear flow will be discussed using the framework of statistical mechanics.