Nonequilibrium Interface Dynamics:
Fundamental Physical Issues in Nonequilibrium Interface Dynamics

CSIC Building (#406), Seminar Room 4122.
Directions: home.cscamm.umd.edu/directions

Coarsening Dynamics During the Growth of One-Dimensional Interfaces

Dr. Paolo Politi

Istituto di Fisica Applicata "N. Carrara" (IFAC)
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR)
Firenze, Italy

Abstract:   Several nonequilibrium systems display an ordered pattern whose typical length scale either increases in the course of time through a coarsening process, or it keeps constant with a possible diverging amplitude. We analyze the dynamics of a one-dimensional growing front and we argue that a coarsening process occurs if and only if the period L of the steady state solution is an increasing function of its amplitude A. This statement is rigorously proved for two important classes of conserved and nonconserved equations by investigating the phase diffusion equation of the steady pattern and by evaluating the relevant free-energy as a function of L and A. We provide further evidence of the relation between coarsening and the behavior of L(A) through the numerical solution of more complicated growth equations. Finally, we discuss the time dependence of the length scale, L(t), for some models displaying coarsening.

[PRESENTATION SLIDES - PDF]