Scaling behavior of self-avoiding tethered vesicles

The scaling behavior of self-avoiding tethered vesicles is analyzed using shell theory and scaling arguments. For closed networks, there is a linear coupling between the out-of-plane undulation modes and the in-plane phonon modes that causes a strong suppression of out-of-plane fluctuations at long length scales. This leads to new scaling behavior, which has important consequences for the analysis of experimental and simulation data. Molecular-dynamics simulation data for tethered vesicles are also presented and analyzed using these results. We find that the exponent {η}, which describes the scale dependence of the bending rigidity, has the value {η}=0.81±{}0.03.