Statistical mechanics of asymmetric tethered membranes: Spiral and crumpled phases.

Abstract

We develop the elastic theory for inversion-asymmetric tethered membranes and use it to identify and study their possible phases. Asymmetry in a tethered membrane causes spontaneous curvature, which in general depends on the local in-plane dilation of the tethered network. This in turn leads to long-range interactions between the local mean and Gaussian curvatures, which are not present in symmetric tethered membranes. This interplay between asymmetry and Gaussian curvature leads to a double-spiral phase not found in symmetric tethered membranes. At temperature T=0, tethered membranes of arbitrarily large size are always rolled up tightly into a conjoined pair of Archimedes' spirals. At finite T this spiral structure swells up significantly into algebraic spirals characterized by universal exponents, which we calculate. These spirals have long-range orientational order, and are the asymmetric analogs of statistically flat symmetric tethered membranes. We also find that sufficiently strong asymmetry can trigger a structural instability leading to crumpling of these membranes as well. This provides a mechanism for crumpling of asymmetric tethered membranes which is not present for symmetric membranes. We calculate the maximum linear extent L_{c} beyond which the membrane crumples, and calculate the universal dependence of L_{c} on the membrane parameters. By tuning the asymmetry parameter, L_{c} can be continuously varied, implying a scale-dependent crumpling. Our theory can be tested in controlled experiments on lipids with artificial deposits of spectrin filaments, in in vitro experiments on red blood cell membrane extracts, and on graphene coated on one side.