APS » PROLA » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 91 » Issue 20

Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 205504 (2003) [4 pages]

Coarsening of Fractal Viscous Fingering Patterns
Download: PDF (117 kB) or Buy this Article (Use Article Pack) Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Eran Sharon *, Mitchell G. Moore †, William D. McCormick, and Harry L. Swinney ‡
Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and Department of Physics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA

Received 25 April 2003; published 13 November 2003

We have measured the coarsening due to surface tension of radially grown fractal viscous fingering patterns. The patterns at late times depend on the structural form at the onset of coarsening, providing information on the age of the fractal. The coarsening process is not dynamically scale invariant, exhibiting two dynamic length scales that grow as L1(t)∼t0.22±0.02 and L2(t)∼t0.31±0.02. The measured exponents are in agreement with the results of recent numerical studies of diffusion-controlled coarsening of a diffusion-limited aggregation fractal [Lipshtat et al., Phys. Rev. E 65, 050501 (2002)].


©2003 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v91/e205504
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.205504
PACS: 61.43.Hv, 47.54.+r, 64.75.+g, 68.03.–g

* Electronic address: eran@chaos.ph.utexas.edu
† Electronic address: mgmoore@chaos.ph.utexas.edu
‡ Electronic address: swinney@chaos.ph.utexas.edu

[ Abstract  |  Previous article  |  Next article  |  Issue 20 ]