Abstract
We report the first systematic observations of precursor effects in shape transitions of phospholipid-bilayer vesicles in aqueous solution. Vesicles change abruptly, as temperature is raised, from a prolate ellipsoidal shape to a “budded” shape consisting of two unequal spheres connected by a narrow neck. On the low- side of this transition, we see large thermal shape fluctuations (quasicritical fluctuations) and long relaxation times (quasicritical slowing down), which may be interpreted, in the context of a Landau theory, as the fluctuations of a metastable state near its spinodal instability.
- Received 15 May 1995
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.75.3360
©1995 American Physical Society