Coarsening versus pattern formation

TL;DR

This paper explores the contrasting behaviors of coarsening and pattern formation in physical systems, analyzing models like Allen-Cahn and Cahn-Hilliard equations to understand factors influencing these processes.

Contribution

It provides a unified description of coarsening phenomena using basic models and discusses mechanisms that can slow or halt coarsening.

Findings

Pinning of domain walls can arrest coarsening.

Oscillatory tails influence domain wall dynamics.

Nonlocal interactions affect pattern evolution.

Abstract

It is known that similar physical systems can reveal two quite different ways of behavior, either coarsening, which creates a uniform state or a large-scale structure, or formation of ordered or disordered patterns, which are never homogenized. We present a description of coarsening using simple basic models, the Allen-Cahn equation and the Cahn-Hilliard equation, and discuss the factors that may slow down and arrest the process of coarsening. Among them are pinning of domain walls on inhomogeneities, oscillatory tails of domain walls, nonlocal interactions, and others. Coarsening of pattern domains is also discussed.