SCALING BEHAVIOR OF FLUID MEMBRANES IN 3 DIMENSIONS

The scaling behavior of self-avoiding (SA) fluid membranes in three dimensions subject to a bending rigidity-kappa is studied by Monte Carlo simulation. For kappa = 0, open and closed membranes behave like SA branched polymers at large length scales. For arbitrary-kappa, scaling functions of the combination y = N1/2/kappa are found to describe the shape variables of closed membranes. The transition from a rigid phase at small y to a SA branched polymer phase at large y is smooth for closed membranes.