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Strong confinement, thermal fluctuations, and mobility of a tightly fitting vesicle in a very narrow microcapillary tube
Europhysics Letters, Volume: 150, Issue: 3, Start page: 37002
Swansea University Author:
Rob Daniels
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Copyright: 2025 The author(s). Published by the EPLA under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).
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DOI (Published version): 10.1209/0295-5075/adcf4a
Abstract
We investigate theoretically the role of thermal fluctuations, and imposed fluid flow, on the paradigmatic properties of a highly confined membrane vesicle inside a very narrow capillary tube. We quantitatively find that the size of the slender gap between a tightly fitting incompressible vesicle an...
| Published in: | Europhysics Letters |
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| ISSN: | 0295-5075 1286-4854 |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2025
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69322 |
| Abstract: |
We investigate theoretically the role of thermal fluctuations, and imposed fluid flow, on the paradigmatic properties of a highly confined membrane vesicle inside a very narrow capillary tube. We quantitatively find that the size of the slender gap between a tightly fitting incompressible vesicle and an enclosing cylindrical tube depends on a subtle interplay between membrane area dilation, vesicle fluctuations, and capillary fluid flow. It is found that in the fluid flow dominated regime, the gap size grows with increasing fluid velocity as a power law, and we are able to calculate the extra hydrodynamic pressure drop due to the presence of the vesicle, as well as the vesicle's relative mobility. Alternatively, below a critical fluid velocity, we find that for the vesicle fluctuation dominated regime the gap size becomes essentially independent of fluid flow. This work is therefore likely to be of crucial importance for considerations of the stalling and dynamic arrest of tightly confined vesicles in narrow constrictions. Possible applications of this work might thus also include biological transport, microfluidics, and drug delivery. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
Swansea University |
| Issue: |
3 |
| Start Page: |
37002 |