Erythrocyte Flickering

Abstract

In this work we will study the fluctuations of the red blood cell membrane where either bending or surface tension energy is present. This work will be based on a previously proposed phase field model for cellular membranes [1, 2] but including a thermal-driven noise. We simulated the fluctuations generated by this thermal noise in a membrane and compared them with recent experimental data for two morphologies of RBC cells of a discocyte and a spherocyte cell shapes. We derived the correlation function for the phase field order parameter and computed the correlation function of our numerical simulations and then we compared our results with the experimental data.