2003/07/29 by Oded Farago, Philip Pincus, P. Pincus · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Materials and Mechanics #Elasticity and Material Modeling #Material Dynamics and Properties #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epje/i2003-10049-y
published as Eur. Phys. J. E, 11 (2003) 399 · 12 pages, to appear in Euro. Phys. J. E
arxiv created 2003/07/29 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the elastic properties of a two-dimensional fluctuating surface whose area density is allowed to deviate from its optimal (Schulman) value. The behavior of such a surface is determined by an interplay between the area-dependent elastic energy, the curvature elasticity, and the entropy. We identify three different elastic regimes depending on the ratio Ap/As between the projected (frame) and the saturated areas. We show that thermal fluctuations modify the elastic energy of stretched surfaces (Ap/As> 1), and dominate the elastic energy of compressed surfaces (Ap/As< 1). When Ap∼ As the elastic energy is not much affected by the fluctuations; the frame area at which the surface tension vanishes becomes smaller than As and the area elasticity modulus increases.