Abstract
The liquid-gel phase transition of bilayer lipid membranes (BLM) is known to be of the first order and closely related with internal degrees of freedom of the amphiphilic molecules. It is also well known that the Potts model undergoes a first order phase transition. Therefore we study the liquid-gel phase transition of the BLM by 10-states Potts model on triangulated surfaces by Monte Carlo simulations. We find that there are non-trivial effects of both fluidity and shape fluctuations on the liquid-gel phase transition and moreover that this first order phase transition is altered to a second order one.
