Forceless Sadowsky strips are spherical

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that forceless solutions of the Sadowsky functional for narrow elastic strips tend to form spherical shapes, revealing new insights into the geometry of developable ribbons relevant to biopolymer physics.

Contribution

It shows that forceless elastic ribbons governed by the Sadowsky functional naturally adopt spherical configurations, expanding understanding beyond classical models.

Findings

Forceless Sadowsky strips lie on a sphere.

Identifies a broader class of functionals with spherical solutions.

Implications for (bio)polymer and nanoscience modeling.

Abstract

We show that thin rectangular ribbons, defined as energy-minimising configurations of the Sadowsky functional for narrow developable elastic strips, have a propensity to form spherical shapes in the sense that forceless solutions lie on a sphere. This has implications for ribbonlike objects in (bio)polymer physics and nanoscience that cannot be described by the classical wormlike chain model. A wider class of functionals with this property is identified.