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Curvature varifolds and biological membranes – Katharina Brazda (University of Vienna)

Abstract

The seminar will be online only. The link is available at: https://seminarimap.wixsite.com/seminarimap/2021-2022/katharina-brazda ABSTRACT: Varifolds are measures that describe generalized surfaces in geometric measure theory. Due to their compactness properties, varifolds provide a favorable framework to study geometric variational problems with the Direct Method. An example of a geometric energy functional that also involves curvature is the Canham-Helfrich energy. Its minimizers model the equilibrium configurations of biological membranes, like the famous biconcave shape of human red blood cells. After a gentle introduction to the theory of curvature varifolds, I present an existence result for multiphase membranes, that I obtained in collaboration with Luca Lussardi (Torino) and Ulisse Stefanelli (Vienna).

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