ADHESION AND UNBINDING FOR BUNCHES OF FLUID MEMBRANES

The unbinding and adhesion of bunches of fluid membranes, interacting via attractive intermolecular forces, are considered. On the basis of scaling arguments it is argued that the nature of the unbinding transition should depend on both the number of membranes involved and the ratios of their rigidities. The results of extensive Monte Carlo simulations of three fluid membranes are presented. The data show that the unbinding of three membranes proceeds differently from the previously studied case of two membranes. At the transition the various length scales are found to diverge as power laws with exponents depending on the ratio of rigidities of the membranes. The conclusions drawn from the simulations are in qualitative agreement with the scaling picture.