Gaussian curvature and the budding kinetics of enveloped viruses
Fig 4
Comparison between the shape of the bud obtained from the simulations (open circles) and the one that minimizes the Helfrich bending energy.
The latter is composed of a spherical cap (black line) joined to a catenoid of revolution (red line). Vertical axis: height Z in arbitrary units. Horizontal axis: radial distance r in arbitrary units. The aperture angle α is treated as a fitting parameter.