Anomalous elasticity, fluctuations and disorder in elastic membranes

Abstract

Motivated by a freely suspended graphene and polymerized membranes in soft and biological matter we present a detailed study of a tensionless elastic sheet in the presence of thermal fluctuations and quenched disorder. The manuscript is based on an extensive draft dating back to 1993, that was circulated privately. It presents the general theoretical framework and calculational details of numerous results, partial forms of which have been published in brief Letters (Le Doussal and Radzihovsky 1992). The experimental realization of atom-thin graphene sheets has driven a resurgence in this fascinating subject, making our dated predictions and their detailed derivations timely. To this end we analyze the statistical mechanics of a generalized D-dimensional elastic "membrane" embedded in d dimensions using a self-consistent screening approximation (SCSA), that has proved to be unprecedentedly accurate in this system, exact in three complementary limits: d --> infinity, D --> 4, and D=d. Focusing on the critical "flat" phase, for a homogeneous two-dimensional membrane embedded in three dimensions, we predict its universal length-scale dependent roughness, elastic moduli exponents, and a universal negative Poisson ratio of -1/3. We also extend these results to short- and long-range correlated random heterogeneity, predicting a variety of glassy wrinkled membrane states. Finally, we also predict and analyze a continuous crumpling transition in a "phantom" elastic sheet. We hope that this detailed presentation of the SCSA theory will be useful for further theoretical developments and corresponding experimental investigations on freely suspended graphene.