Numerical version of the area-difference elasticity model for lipid-detergent bilayer vesiculation

By applying the area-difference elasticity (ADE) model, we have analysed the vesiculation process in the lipid-detergent solution, which was recently studied by small-angle neutron scattering by Kiselev and coworkers. The vesiculation proceeds from rod-like micelles to unilamellar vesicles, and this transformation is induced by a rapid increase in temperature and an increase in detergent concentration. We have estimated numerically the parameters of the vesicle shape (the elasticity coefficients and its fraction on a macroscopic scale) on the basis of the ADE model and geometrical confinement principles. The method connects the macroscopic and microscopic scales by the concept of self-avoiding random surfaces. Using a lattice-cluster Monte Carlo simulation, the criterion for the formation of osculating and non-osculating shapes can be defined, and the phase diagrams for the detergent-concentration dependence can be constructed.