DISCONTINUOUS PHASE-TRANSITIONS OF MEMBRANES - A MONTE-CARLO STUDY

Fluid membranes which experience interaction potentials with a potenti al barrier are studied by Monte Carlo simulations. For a symmetric dou ble-well potential, the membranes are found to exhibit the same critic al behavior as the 2-dimensional Ising model even for zero lateral ten sion. For an asymmetric adhesion potential with a relatively large pot ential barrier, the unbound phase is found to nucleate via the formati on of membrane 'islands' which implies a discontinuous unbinding trans ition.