Part III - Ordering, Coagulation, Phase Separation

Summary

Editor's note

Nucleation, phase separation, cluster growth and coarsening, ordering, and spinodal decomposition are interrelated topics of great practical importance. While most experimental realizations of these phenomena are in three (bulk) and two (surface) dimensions, there has been much interest in lattice and continuum (off-lattice) 1D stochastic dynamical systems modeling these irreversible processes.

The main applications of 1D models have been in testing various scaling theories such as cluster-size-distribution scaling and scaling forms of orderparameter correlation functions. Exact solutions are particularly useful in this regard, and the focus of all three chapters in this Part is on exactly solvable models. Additional literary sources are cited in the chapters, including general review- articles as well as other studies in 1D.

Chapter 7 reviews exact solutions of three different models of phaseordering dynamics, including results based on the Glauber-Ising model introduced in Part II. Chapter 8 review's a model with synchronous (cellularautomaton) dynamics and relations to reactions (Part I). In both chapters exact results for scaling of the two-point correlation function are obtained. Finally, Ch. 9 describes models of coagulating particles and associated results for cluster-size-distribution scaling.