Characterization of homogeneous nucleation of superheated liquid droplets by nonlinear analysis

Abstract

The homogeneous bubble nucleation in superheated liquid droplets can be initiated by energetic particles or radiation. The nonlinearity in the heat transfer introduces chaos in the temperature time series of a boiling system. In the present study, the acoustical pulses from the homogeneous nucleation of superheated liquid droplets by neutrons and gamma-rays have been collected. Nonlinear time series analysis methods like 3D attractor reconstruction and Fast Fourier transformation (FFT) have been performed on the collected pulses. The analysis predicts the possibility of the existence of chaos, and the positive value of the largest Lyapunov exponent confirms it. The nonlinearity in the energy deposition by both the recoil nuclei and electrons from the neutrons and gamma-rays respectively, introduce chaos. A qualitative difference has been observed in the 3D attractor and Rescaled Range (R/S) plots between the neutron and gamma-ray-induced pulses, and the present differences are useful for the identification of these pulses.