11 research outputs found
Thermodynamics and dynamics of the formation of spherical lipidic vesicles
We propose a free energy expression accounting for the formation of spherical
vesicles from planar lipidic membranes and derive a Fokker-Planck equation for
the probability distribution describing the dynamics of vesicle formation. We
found that formation may occur as an activated process for small membranes and
as a transport process for sufficiently large membranes. We give explicit
expressions for the transition rates and the characteristic time of vesicle
formation in terms of the relevant physical parameters.Comment: 14pgs, 6 figures, sendo to Jour. Phys. Bio