Droplets nucleation, and Smoluchowski's equation with growth and injection of particles

TL;DR

This paper develops a mean-field model for droplet nucleation and growth, incorporating injection and vapor absorption, deriving collision kernels, analyzing scaling behaviors, and validating with numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Smoluchowski equation for droplet distributions with growth and injection, providing new analytical solutions and insights into nucleation processes.

Findings

Exact solutions for constant kernel show unusual scaling.

Asymptotic behaviors depend on growth exponent and kernel.

Numerical simulations agree with mean-field predictions.

Abstract

We show that models for homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation of D-dimensional droplets in a d-dimensional medium are described in mean-field by a modified Smoluchowski equation for the distribution N(s,t) of droplets masses s, with additional terms accounting for exogenous growth from vapor absorption, and injection of small droplets when the model allows renucleation. The corresponding collision kernel is derived in both cases. For a generic collision kernel K, the equation describes a clustering process with clusters of mass s growing between collision with ds/dt=As^\beta$, and injection of monomers at a rate I(t). General properties of this equation are studied. The gel criterion is determined. Without injection, exact solutions are found with a constant kernel, exhibiting unusual scaling behavior. For a general kernel, under the scaling assumption N(s,t)\sim Y(t)^{-1}f(s/S(t)), we determine the asymptotics of S(t) and Y(t), and derive the scaling equation. Depending on \beta and K, a great diversity of behaviors is found. For constant injection, there is an asymptotic steady state with N(s,t=\infty)\propto s^{-\tau} and \tau$is determined. The case of a constant mass injection rate is related to homogeneous nucleation and is studied. Finally, we show how these results shed some new light on heterogeneous nucleation with d=D. For d=D=2 (discs on a plane), numerical simulations are performed, in good agreement with the mean-field results.