Rotational mobility in spherical membranes: The interplay between Saffman-Delbrück length and inclusion size

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Hauptverfasser: Vona, Marco, Lauga, Eric
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Vona, Marco
Lauga, Eric
author_facet Vona, Marco
Lauga, Eric
contents The mobility of particles in fluid membranes is a fundamental aspect of many biological processes. In a 1975 paper [1], Saffman and Delbrück demonstrated how the presence of external Stokesian solvents is crucial in regularising the apparently singular flow within an infinite flat membrane. In the present paper, we extend this classical work and compute the rotational mobility of a rigid finite-sized particle located inside a spherical membrane embedded in Stokesian solvents. Treating the particle as a spherical cap, we solve for the flow semi-analytically as a function of the Saffman-Delbrück (SD) length (ratio of membrane to solvent viscosity) and the solid angle formed by the particle. We study the dependence of the mobility and flow on inclusion size and SD length, recovering the flat-space mobility as a special case. Our results will be applicable to a range of biological problems including rotational Brownian motion, the dynamics of lipid rafts, and the motion of aquaporin channels in response to water flow. Our method will provide a novel way of measuring a membrane's viscosity from the rotational diffusion of large inclusions, for which the commonly used planar Saffman-Delbrück theory does not apply.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_05367
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rotational mobility in spherical membranes: The interplay between Saffman-Delbrück length and inclusion size
Vona, Marco
Lauga, Eric
Biological Physics
Fluid Dynamics
The mobility of particles in fluid membranes is a fundamental aspect of many biological processes. In a 1975 paper [1], Saffman and Delbrück demonstrated how the presence of external Stokesian solvents is crucial in regularising the apparently singular flow within an infinite flat membrane. In the present paper, we extend this classical work and compute the rotational mobility of a rigid finite-sized particle located inside a spherical membrane embedded in Stokesian solvents. Treating the particle as a spherical cap, we solve for the flow semi-analytically as a function of the Saffman-Delbrück (SD) length (ratio of membrane to solvent viscosity) and the solid angle formed by the particle. We study the dependence of the mobility and flow on inclusion size and SD length, recovering the flat-space mobility as a special case. Our results will be applicable to a range of biological problems including rotational Brownian motion, the dynamics of lipid rafts, and the motion of aquaporin channels in response to water flow. Our method will provide a novel way of measuring a membrane's viscosity from the rotational diffusion of large inclusions, for which the commonly used planar Saffman-Delbrück theory does not apply.
title Rotational mobility in spherical membranes: The interplay between Saffman-Delbrück length and inclusion size
topic Biological Physics
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05367