A variational approach to particles in lipid membranes (Q338104)

The paper is devoted to various well-known and new models of proteins in lipid membranes. The goal of the paper is to provide a rigorous mathematical analysis of hybrid models, which have been actively studied in theoretical physics since the early nineties. Hybrid models combine two approaches: pure continuum models, based on the fundamental Canham-Helfrich (CH) energy, and coarse-grained molecular models, consisting of a finite number of particles. In this paper, the proteins are treated as discrete rigid particles, coupled to the continuous membrane, described by a linearized CH model, by suitable conditions on the membrane displacement and its normal derivative (angle condition) at the particle boundaries. The averaged hybrid models are introduced, arising from approximations of these boundary value conditions by mean values of curvature. Approximating those mean values by point curvature constraints, the authors obtain hybrid models with point-like particles. For particles interacting with cytoskeleton, two different classes of models are considered: describing interactions with the membrane by point values or by point forces. The authors obtain uniqueness and existence results for the mentioned hybrid models in terms of Green's functions. Theoretical results are equipped with numerical examples.