Analysis on an ODE arisen from studying the shape of a red blood cell. (Q1399393)

The paper concerns sufficient conditions on the parameters of a second-order ordinary differential equation in order for its solution to generate in \(\mathbb R^3\) a revolution surface \(\Sigma\) of a required shape. The ODE comes from the Euler-Lagrange equation of the functional \({\mathcal{F}}(\Sigma)=\int_\Sigma(2H-c_0)^2dS+\lambda|\Sigma|+pV\) where \(\Sigma\) is a closed surface with mean curvature \(H\), surface area \(|\Sigma|\), and encloses a volume \(V\). The functional \({\mathcal{F}}\) describes the energy of a red blood cell. The main result states that an axial symmetric minimizer \(\Sigma\) has indeed the shape of a red blood cell if there is positive every real root \(t\) of the associated cubic polynomial \(Q(t)=t^3+2c_0t^2+(c_0^2+\lambda)t-p/2\).