Saddle regions energy landscapes

Figure 10.9 Time sequence of the final budding instability with constant control parameters (v, Auq) very close to the spinodal line [22], The initial pear-like shape results from a giant thermal fluctuation of a metastable prolate vesicle onto the saddle point of the bending energy landscape. The elsqtsed time between snapshots is 1.2 s. First, a slow diflusion occurs over the saddle point region corresponding to the pear-like shapes until, finally, the vesicle relaxes towards the budded configuration by quickly closing down the neck between the two quasispherical parts of the shape.

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