Interface Roughening in a Hydrodynamic Lattice-Gas Model with Surfactant

TL;DR

This paper investigates how surfactant concentration affects interface roughening in a binary fluid using a hydrodynamic lattice-gas model, revealing smoothing at low concentrations and microemulsion formation at high concentrations.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamic lattice-gas model to analyze the impact of surfactant on interface roughening and stability in binary fluids.

Findings

Surfactant smooths the interface at low concentrations.

High surfactant levels lead to microemulsion droplets.

Roughness and growth exponents vary with surfactant concentration.

Abstract

Using a hydrodynamic lattice-gas model, we study interface growth in a binary fluid with various concentrations of surfactant. We find that the interface is smoothed by small concentrations of surfactant, while microemulsion droplets form for large surfactant concentrations. To assist in determining the stability limits of the interface, we calculate the change in the roughness and growth exponents $\alpha$ and $\beta$ as a function of surfactant concentration along the interface.