Self-Similarity and Intermittency of Processes of Droplet Growths in Phase-Separating Systems

Abstract

The intermittency effect on the droplet growth rates, proposed previously [H. Furukawa, to be published in Phys. Rev. A] to explain the numerical simulation on highly degenerate system, is discussed on more firm basis. The droplet radiusR grows effectively as R(t)octa* with a*=w,a, +W2a2 (WI +W2=1), where a, and a2 are growth rate exponents of elementary processes and w, and W2 are probabilities of finding corresponding processes. The intermittency growth rate is due to the self· similarity of the switching process of growth mechanisms in a small region of the system together with coarse-graining in time. The concentration-dependence of the exponent a* is discussed. The theoretical prediction for a binary fluid mixture is compared with previous experimental data.