First-order phase transition of fixed connectivity surfaces

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2004 Jun;69(6 Pt 2):066139. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.69.066139. Epub 2004 Jun 23.

Abstract

We report numerical evidence of the discontinuous transition of a tethered membrane model which is defined within a framework of the membrane elasticity of Helfrich. Two kinds of phantom tethered membrane models are studied via the canonical Monte Carlo simulation on triangulated fixed connectivity surfaces of spherical topology. One surface model is defined by the Gaussian term and the bending energy term, and the other, which is tensionless, is defined by the bending energy term and a hard wall potential. The bending energy is defined by using the normal vector at each vertex. Both models undergo the first-order phase transition characterized by a gap of the bending energy. The phase structure of the models depends on the choice of discrete bending energy.