Eur. Phys. J. E (2006) 21: 91-98
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2006-10050-0

Regular Article

Shrinkage dynamics of a vesicle in surfactant solutions

Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, 606-8502, Kyoto, Japan

^* e-mail: kaga@ton.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp
^** e-mail: takao@scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Received: 15 June 2006
Accepted: 17 October 2006
Published online: 7 November 2006

Abstract

We develop a theory for shrinkage dynamics of a vesicle interacting with surfactant molecules. A stepwise shrinkage is formulated in such a way that it consists of two processes. One is a nucleation process of a pore under increasing of the membrane tension. The other is a closure process of the pore due to the line tension of the pore edge after leakage of the inner fluid. We carry out numerical simulations and show that the results agree with experiments semi-quantitatively. An analytical study is also carried out to understand the periodic shrinkage.