On the ripening of vesicle dispersions
We analyze the ripening process where, in a dispersion of vesicles, amphiphile monomers diffuse between vesicles of different sizes, leading to a change in the size distribution. Since, typically, vesicles are not under tension, the driving force for the process comes from the curvature energy. With the conventional expansion of the curvature energy density, g,, to harmonic order we find that the
