Calculating the bending moduli of the Canham--Helfrich free-energy density from a particular potential

Abstract

The Canham--Helfrich free-energy density for a lipid bilayer involves the mean and Gaussian curvatures of the midsurface of the bilayer. The splay and saddle-splay moduli $\kappa$ and $\bar\kappa$ regulate the sensitivity of the free-energy density to changes of these curvatures. Seguin and Fried derived the Canham--Helfrich energy by taking into account the interactions between the molecules comprising the bilayer, giving rise to integral representations for the moduli in terms of the interaction potential. In the present work, two potentials are chosen and the integrals are evaluated to yield expressions for the moduli, which are found to depend on parameters associated with each potential. These results are compared with values of the moduli found in the current literature.