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Updated: Jul 9, 2025

Phase Behavior of Charged Vesicles Under Symmetric and Asymmetric Solution Conditions Monitored with Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: October 24, 2017
Stationary shapes of axisymmetric vesicles beyond lowest-energy configurations
Rodrigo B Reboucas1, Michael J Miksis1, Petia M Vlahovska1
1Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Abstract:
We conduct a systematic exploration of the energy landscape of vesicle morphologies within the framework of the Helfrich model. Vesicle shapes are determined by minimizing the elastic energy subject to constraints of constant area and volume. The results show that pressurized vesicles can adopt higher-energy spindle-like configurations that require the action of point forces at the poles. If the internal pressure is lower than the external one, multilobed shapes are predicted. We utilize our results to rationalize the experimentally observed spindle shapes of giant vesicles in a uniform AC field.
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