Related papers: Large deviations and rain showers
Collisions between giant molecular clouds are a potential mechanism for triggering the formation of massive stars, or even super star clusters. The trouble is identifying this process observationally and distinguishing it from other…
A rectangular grid formed by liquid filaments on a partially wetting substrate evolves in a series of breakups leading to arrays of drops with different shapes distributed in a rather regular bidimensional pattern. Our study is focused on…
In a changing climate, a key role may be played by the response of convective-type cloud and precipitation to temperature changes. Yet, it is unclear if precipitation intensities will increase mainly due to modified thermodynamic forcing or…
Heterogeneous condensation of vapours mixed with a carrier gas in the stagnation point boundary layer flow near a cold wall is considered in the presence of solid particles much larger than the mean free path of vapour particles. The…
This article describes the dynamics of small inertial particles centrifuging out of a single vortex. It shows the importance of caustics formation in the vicinity of a single vortex: both for particle collisions and void formation. From…
Rainfall is a climatic factor that affects many human activities like agriculture, construction, and forestry. Rainfall is dependent on various meteorological features and its prediction is a very complex task due to the dynamic climatic…
Particle beams are important tools for probing atomic and molecular interactions. Here we demonstrate that particle beams also offer a unique opportunity to investigate interactions in macroscopic systems, such as granular media. Motivated…
Several species of plants have raindrop-sized flowers that catch raindrops opportunistically in order to spread their 0.3-mm seeds distances of over 1 m. In the following fluid dynamics video, we show examples of these plants and some of…
One of the key clues to consider rainfall as a self-organized critical phenomenon is the existence of power-law distributions for rain-event sizes. We have studied the problem of universality in the exponents of these distributions by means…
Although realizing wetting transitions of droplets spontaneously on solid rough surfaces is quite challenging, it is becoming a key research topic in many practical applications which require highly efficient removal of liquid. We report…
In ergodic physical systems, time-averaged quantities converge (for large times) to their ensemble-averaged values. Large deviation theory describes rare events where these time averages differ significantly from the corresponding ensemble…
We discuss the nature of the velocity dispersion vs. size relation for molecular clouds. In particular, we add to previous observational results showing that the velocity dispersions in molecular clouds and cores are not purely functions of…
The formation of precipitation in state-of-the-art weather and climate models is an important process. The understanding of its relationship with other variables can lead to endless benefits, particularly for the world's monsoon regions…
Galaxy growth depends critically on the interplay between radiative cooling of cosmic gas and the resulting energetic feedback that cooling triggers. This interplay has proven exceedingly difficult to model, even with large supercomputer…
A central problem in cloud physics is understanding the kinetics of the growth of water droplets. It is believed that there exists a 'condensation-coalescence bottleneck' in the growth of intermediate size droplets. Here the Lifshitz-Slezov…
Meteor physics can provide new clues about the size, structure, and density of cometary disintegration products, establishing a bridge between different research fields. From meteor magnitude data we have estimated the mass distribution of…
Dilute granular flows are routinely described by collisional kinetic theory, but dense flows require a fundamentally different approach, due to long-lasting, many-body contacts. In the case of silo drainage, many continuum models have been…
Theories of how galaxies, the fundamental constituents of large-scale structure, form and evolve have undergone a dramatic paradigm shift in the last few decades. Earlier views were of rapid, early collapse and formation of basic…
This model considers reversible elementary acts of migration of point defects (interstitials and/or vacancies) across the precipitate-matrix interface and enables one to derive equations for the rates of emission and absorption of solute…
Both observations and recent numerical simulations of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) support the hypothesis that a self-regulating feedback loop suspends the gas density of the ambient CGM close to the galaxy in a state with a ratio of…