Wrinkling of vesicles during transient dynamics in elongational flow

Recent experiments by Kantsler et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 178102 (2007)] have shown that the relaxational dynamics of a vesicle in external elongation flow is accompanied by the formation of wrinkles on a membrane. Motivated by these experiments we present a theory describing the dynamics of a wrinkled membrane. The formation of wrinkles is related to the dynamical instability induced by negative surface tension of the membrane. For quasispherical vesicles we perform analytical study of the wrinkle structure dynamics. We derive the expression for the instability threshold and identify three stages of the dynamics. The scaling laws for the temporal evolution of wrinkling wavelength and surface tension are established, confirmed numerically, and compared to experimental results.