I recently posted a stackexchange question in biology.SE. It was about membrane biophysics. I was doubtful whetherto post it in physics.SEor biology.SE, physics.SE had more meaningful tag options. But I ended up asking in bio.SE. The question can be viewed here: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/69321/regarding-ripple-phase-in-lipids
As expected I got no answer, because biophysics is not having a great user base there. I am giving a snapshot of my question here:
But I got a satisfying answer from one of my friends. I will post that here.
ANSWER:
As far as I know, there hasn't been an experimental study on the dynamics of the ripple phase at the level of details that you are describing. People tend to identify this phase through its (structurally periodic) height modulation, which is typically observed by freeze-fracture electron microscopy, X-ray scattering, and NMR spectroscopy. This essentially gives us just the structural dependence; so, for all intents and purposes, the observed structure is stationary. Perhaps, AFM or other techniques could allow one for a more direct visualization of the dynamics, as the temperature or hydration is varied, but I'm not too familiar with this research field per se. Though, it's an interesting speculation.
Regarding your second question, the short answer I think it's 'no', because if the system is above the main phase transition, then the bulk lipid environment will be fluid-like regardless of what it's embedded in the bilayer. The general believe is that ripple phase emerges due to the mismatch between the bulky head-group of the lipid and its hydrocarbon chains, where the latter are mainly in all-trans configuration (i.e. straight hydrocarbon tails, as in the gel phase). Above Tm, this chain configuration is completely disordered, and thus the effective shape of a lipid in the bilayer changes, resulting in the fluid-like behavior we observe.
However, if you are asking whether an additional concentration field (say, of a specific protein) could lead to structural modulation in a multi-component membrane that mimics the ripple phase (seen in lipid bilayers), then the answer I think is 'yes'. Such a modulation could be achieved, for instance, through a coupling of the membrane curvature to the protein concentration field; namely, the proteins prefer to enrich in regions of non-zero curvature, rather than on a flat membrane.
Now my aim is to present this to steemit community and have discussion over this topic for those who are interested in it. Please comment your thoughts.