Phase separation and near-critical fluctuations in two-component lipid membranes: Monte Carlo simulations on experimentally relevant scales

By means of lattice-based Monte Carlo simulations, we address the properties of two-component lipid membranes on the experimentally relevant spatial scales of the order of a micrometer and time intervals of the order of 1 s, using DMPC/DSPC lipid mixtures as a model system. Our large-scale simulations allowed us to obtain important results not reported previously in simulation studies of lipid membranes. We find that, for a certain range of lipid compositions, the phase transition from the fluid phase to the fluid-gel phase coexistence proceeds via near-critical fluctuations, whereas for other lipid compositions this phase transition has a quasi-abrupt character. In the presence of near-critical fluctuations, transient subdiffusion of lipid molecules is observed. These features of the system are stable with respect to perturbations in lipid interaction parameters used in our simulations. The line tension characterizing lipid domains in the fluid-gel coexistence region is found to be in the pN range. On approaching the critical point, the line tension, the inverse correlation length of fluid-gel spatial fluctuations and the corresponding inverse order parameter susceptibility of the membrane vanish. All these results are in agreement with recent experimental findings for model lipid membranes. Our analysis of the domain coarsening dynamics after an abrupt quench of the membrane to the fluid-gel coexistence region reveals that lateral diffusion of lipids plays an important role in the fluid-gel phase separation process.