Scaling Law and Universal Drop Size Distribution of Coarsening in Conversion-Limited Phase Separation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that conversion-limited phase separation exhibits universal coarsening behavior similar to grain growth in single-phase materials, challenging traditional theories and providing new analytical insights.

Contribution

It reveals that conversion-limited phase separation can be modeled as grain growth, offering a unified understanding of coarsening dynamics in biological and physical systems.

Findings

Conversion-limited phase separation maps onto grain growth models.

Universal late-stage coarsening behavior is analytically characterized.

Standard coarsening theories do not apply to conversion-limited systems.

Abstract

Phase separation is not only ubiquitous in diverse physical systems, but also plays an important organizational role inside biological cells. However, experimental studies of intracellular condensates (drops with condensed concentrations of specific collections of proteins and nucleic acids) have challenged the standard coarsening theories of phase separation. Specifically, the coarsening rates observed are unexpectedly slow for many intracellular condensates. Recently, Folkmann, et al. [Science {\bf 373}, 1218 (2021)] argued that the slow coarsening rate can be caused by the slow conversion of a condensate constituent between the state in the dilute phase and the condensate state. A consequence of this conversion-limited picture is that standard theories of coarsening in phase separation (Lifshitz-Slyozov--Wagner Ostwald ripening and drop coalescence schemes) no longer apply. Surprisingly, I show here that the model equations of conversion-limited phase separation can instead be mapped onto a grain growth model in a single-phase material in three dimensions. I further elucidate the universal coarsening behavior in the late stage using analytical and numerical methods.