Coarsening, condensates and extremes in aggregation-fragmentation models

We use extreme value statistics to study the dynamics of coarsening in aggregation-fragmentation models which form condensates in the steady state. The dynamics is dominated by the formation of local condensates on a coarsening length scale which grows in time in both the zero range process and conserved mass aggregation model. The local condensate mass distribution exhibits scaling, which implies anomalously large fluctuations, with mean and standard deviation both proportional to the coarsening length. Remarkably, the state of the system during coarsening is governed not by the steady state, but rather a pre-asymptotic state in which the condensate mass fluctuates strongly.