On the existence of a scaling relation in the evolution of cellular systems

Abstract

A mean field approximation is used to analyse the evolution of the distribution of sizes in systems formed by individual “cells”, each of which grows or shrinks, in such a way that the total number of cells decreases (e.g. polycrystals, soap froths, precipitate particles in a matrix). The rate of change of the size of a cell is defined by a growth function that depends on the size ( x) of the cell and on moments of the size distribution, such as the average size ( x ). Evolutionary equations for the distribution of sizes and of reduced sizes (i.e. x/ x ) are established. The stationary (or steady state) solutions of the equations are obtained for various particular forms of the growth function. A steady state of the reduced size distribution is equivalent to a scaling behaviour. It is found that there are an infinity of steady state solutions which form a (continuous) one-parameter family of functions, but they are not, in general, reached from an arbitrary initial state. These properties are at variance from those that can be derived from models based on von Neumann-Mullins equation.