Caustics in turbulent aerosols
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-10 v2 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Chaotic Dynamics
Abstract
Networks of caustics can occur in the distribution of particles suspended in a randomly moving gas. These can facilitate coagulation of particles by bringing them into close proximity, even in cases where the trajectories do not coalesce. We show that the long-time morphology of these caustic patterns is determined by the Lyapunov exponents lambda_1, lambda_2 of the suspended particles, as well as the rate J at which particles encounter caustics. We develop a theory determining the quantities J, lambda_1, lambda_2 from the statistical properties of the gas flow, in the limit of short correlation times.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0403011,
title = {Caustics in turbulent aerosols},
author = {M. Wilkinson and B. Mehlig},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0403011},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures