Shape and Fluctuations of Positively Curved Ribbons

TL;DR

This paper investigates the shape, fluctuations, and phase behavior of positively curved ribbons with incompatible geometry, revealing a transition from rigid to soft states and identifying three distinct phases influenced by temperature and width.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive phase diagram for positively curved ribbons, highlighting a novel Random Structured phase with complex segment shapes like helices.

Findings

Identifies a sharp transition between rigid ring and soft spring behavior.

Discovers a non-monotonic temperature dependence of persistence and Kuhn lengths.

Defines three distinct phases: Ideal Chain, Plain Ergodic, and Random Structured.

Abstract

We study the shape and shape fluctuations of positively curved ribbons, with a flat reference metric and a sphere-like reference curvature. Such incompatible geometry is likely to occur in many self assembled materials and other experimental systems. Such ribbons exhibit a sharp transition between rigid ring and an anomalously soft spring as a function of their width. As a result, the temperature dependence of these ribbons' shape is unique, exhibiting a non-monotonic dependence of the persistence and Kuhn lengths on the temperature and width. We map the possible configuration phase space and show the existence of three phases- at high temperatures it is the Ideal Chain phase, where the ribbon is well described by classical models (e.g- worm like chain model); The second phase, for cold and narrow ribbons, is the Plain Ergodic phase - a ribbon in this phase might be thought of as made out of segments that gyrate within an oblate spheroid with extreme aspect ratio; The third phase, for cold, wide ribbons, is a direct result of the residual stress caused by the incompatibility, called Random Structured phase. A ribbon in this phase behaves on large scales as an Ideal Chain, however the segments of this chain are not straight, rather they may have different shapes, mainly helices (both left and right handed) of various pitches.