Orientation Asymmetric Surface Model for Membranes: Finsler Geometry Modeling

Abstract

We study triangulated surface models with nontrivial surface metrices for membranes. The surface model is defined by a mapping r from a two-dimensional parameter space M to the three-dimensional Euclidean space R 3 . The metric variable g a b , which is always fixed to the Euclidean metric δ a b , can be extended to a more general non-Euclidean metric on M in the continuous model. The problem we focus on in this paper is whether such an extension is well defined or not in the discrete model. We find that a discrete surface model with a nontrivial metric becomes well defined if it is treated in the context of Finsler geometry (FG) modeling, where triangle edge length in M depends on the direction. It is also shown that the discrete FG model is orientation asymmetric on invertible surfaces in general, and for this reason, the FG model has a potential advantage for describing real physical membranes, which are expected to have some asymmetries for orientation-changing transformations.

Keywords

• triangulated surface model
• membranes
• Helfrich and Polyakov
• non-Euclidean metric
• Finsler geometry
• direction-dependent length
• orientation symmetry/asymmetry