2013/08/28 by Ee Hou Yong, L. Mahadevan, Yong, Ee Hou +1
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Diffusion and Search Dynamics #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1308.6052
arxiv created 2013/08/28 · openalex publication_date 2013/08/28 · arxiv updated 2013/08/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Unlike macroscopic multistable mechanical systems such as snap bracelets or elastic shells that must be physically manipulated into various conformations, microscopic systems can undergo spontaneous conformation switching between multistable states due to thermal fluctuations. Here we investigate the statistical mechanics of shape transitions in small elastic elliptical plates and shells driven by noise. By assuming that the effects of edges are small, which we justify exactly for plates and shells with a lenticular section, we decompose the shapes into a few geometric modes whose dynamics are easy to follow. We use Monte Carlo simulations to characterize the shape transitions between conformation minima as a function of noise strength, and corroborate our results using a Fokker-Planck formalism to study the stationary distribution and the mean first passage time problem. Our results are applicable to objects such as such as graphene flakes or protein β-sheets, where fluctuations, geometry and finite size effects are important.