2004/09/30 by Martin Michael Mueller, Markus Deserno, Jemal Guven
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/epl/i2004-10368-1
published as Europhys. Lett., 69 (3), pp. 482-488 (2005) · 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, Europhysics Letters style. New version corresponds to the one accepted by EPL. More explanations are added on some differential geometric topics; a mistake in footnote [18] and a missing prefactor of 1/2 in the last row of the Table has been fixed
Soft interfaces can mediate interactions between particles bound to them. The force transmitted through the surface geometry on a particle may be expressed as a closed line integral of the surface stress tensor around that particle. This contour may be deformed to exploit the symmetries present; for two identical particles, one obtains an exact expression for the force between them in terms of the local surface geometry of their mid-plane; in the case of a fluid membrane the sign of the interaction is often evident. The approach, by construction, is adapted directly to the surface and is independent of its parameterization. Furthermore, it is applicable for arbitrarily large deformations; in particular, it remains valid beyond the linear small-gradient regime.