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Dynamics of curved fronts and pattern selection
D. Bensimon, P. Pelce, B.I. Shraiman
To cite this version:
D. Bensimon, P. Pelce, B.I. Shraiman. Dynamics of curved fronts and pattern selection. Journal de
Physique, 1987, 48 (12), pp.2081-2087. �10.1051/jphys:0198700480120208100�. �jpa-00210655�
Dynamics of curved fronts and pattern selection
D. Bensimon, P. Pelce (1) and B. I. Shraiman
AT & T Bell Laboratories, 600 Mountain Av., Murray Hill, NJ 07974, U.S.A.
(Reçu le 24 juillet 1987, accepté le 31 août 1987)
Résumé.
2014On étudie la stabilité d’un front courbe vis-à-vis de perturbations de courte longueur d’onde dans le cadre de l’approximation WKB. On trouve un spectre discret de modes instables pour une famille d’interfaces à un paramètre. On propose un critère de sélection approché qui détermine les valeurs des
paramètres correspondant aux interfaces stationnaires. Dans le cas du doigt de Saffman-Taylor et de la dendrite, on prouve la conjecture que le n-ième état sélectionné possède n modes instables de tip-splitting.
Abstract.
2014The stability of moving curved fronts to short wavelength perturbations is investigated using the
WKB approximation. A discrete spectrum of unstable localized modes is found for a one parameter family of
interfaces. An approximate selection criterion for determining the values of the parameter corresponding to the steady state is proposed. For the Saffman-Taylor problem and dendritic growth we prove the conjecture that
the n-th selected state possesses n unstable tip-splitting modes.
Classification
Physics Abstracts
47.15H-47.20K-61.50K
1. Introduction.
In this paper we shall concern ourselves with the
problem of determining the shape and stability of moving interfaces in non-equilibrium systems. In
particular we shall consider the Saffman-Taylor (ST) problem [1] which addresses the motion of the interface between two viscous fluids in a Hele-Shaw cell and the dendritic growth (DG) problem [2]
which deals with the propagation of a solidification front into an undercooled melt. The major recent
progress in the understanding of the mathematical structure of these problems was due to the realisation of the essential and subtle role played by surface
tension. In its absence the ST and DG problems are
known to admit a continuous family of steady state
fronts propagating with arbitrary velocity. For the
ST problem these fronts are fluid fingers [1] occupy-
ing an arbitrary fraction 0 A 1 of the cell width and for DG they are Ivantsov’s needle crystals- parabolic fronts [2] with arbitrary tip radius p.
However, as proved by recent numerical [3-5] and
(1 ) Permanent address : Laboratoire de Recherche en Combustion, Universite de Provence, Centre St-Jdrome,
rue H. Poincard, 13397 Marseille Cedex 13, France.
analytical [6-11] studies, arbitrarily small surface tension leads to a breakdown of the family to a
denumerable discrete set of steady states. Inspite of
this dramatic effect, these steady states remain very close in shape to the zero surface tension solutions
having the same finger width A or tip radius p. This
suggests looking for a simple criterion to determine
which of the solutions of the zero surface tension
problem are good approximations to the true steady
states. Another interesting question concerns the
apparent connection between the existence of a
steady state and its dynamics. It was posed directly by recent numerical calculations of Kessler and Levine [12] and Tanveer [13]. They have shown that
of all the discrete solutions existing in the presence of surface tension only one, the lowest (Ào or Po) is stable. All others are unstable. The n-th solution was conjectured to possess n unstable localized eigenmodes.
In this paper we present a general approach to study the stability of curved interfaces to short-
wavelength perturbations. We will prove the afore- mentioned conjecture and propose a selection criterion which allows to determine the parameter values for the set of true steady states. Our starting point, following the idea of Zeldovich [14-16] is a
WKB description of the dynamics of short
Article published online by EDP Sciences and available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/jphys:0198700480120208100
2082
wavelength disturbances on a steadily moving front.
The evolution equation thus derived depends only
on the fundamental aspects of the flat interface
instability. It has the same general form for ST as
well as DG problems which allows us to treat both
problems simultaneously. For the zero surface ten-
sion solutions the spectrum of unstable localized modes is then determined by a « resonance » condi-
tion similar to the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization
relation. (The analysis is similar to the WKB study
of scattering resonances [17-18] in quantum
mechanics.) We will argue that the true steady-states corresponds to the parameter values (A or p) for
which the discrete set of localized modes contains a zero mode [19]. From the structure of the spectrum
it will be seen that the n-th selected state possesses n unstable localized (tip splitting) eigenmodes.
2. Evolution equation for shortwavelength pertur- bations.
For both the ST and DG problems (in the quasis- tationary approximation) the dynamics of the inter- face is determined by solving an elliptic equation for
some scalar field 0 (x, y) (the pressure for the ST
problem [1], the temperature for DG [2]) the value
of which is given on the interface, r, in terms of the
local curvature : K.
The normal velocity of the interface is then determi- ned by the field flux at the interface.
For this class of problems the flat front is unstable
[20]. The growth rate cr of a small perturbation with
wavenumber k satisfies the dispersion relation (see Fig. 1) :
The velocity of the moving front V sets the time scale and the effective surface tension parameter v deter- mines the lengthscale on which the interface is restabilized. For the ST problem [1, 15] v2 =
(2 7Tb /W)2 . T /12 J.L V with b and W respectively
the thickness and width of the Hele-Shaw cell, J.L the viscosity of the more viscous fluid (the other having negligible viscosity), and T the interfacial surface tension. For DG [2], v2 = lD d0 with lD - the
diffusion length and do
-the capillary length.
We proceed by writing down the WKB evolution
equation [14]. Consider the propagation of a small
disturbance y (s, t ) on a steady front r 0 moving at velocity V = 1 (see Fig. 2). The front can be specified by the angle between the normal to the
Fig. 1.
-The dispersion relation for the growth rate a of
a disturbance with wavenumber k on a flat front moving at velocity V = 1.
Fig. 2. - The perturbation y (s, t ) to the steady state
interface To.
interface and the direction of propagation 0 (s) as a
function of arclength s. y (s, t ) is defined as the
displacement normal to the interface : F(s, t) = r0(s) + hy (s, t ). If the wavelength of the perturba-
tion is much smaller than the local radius of curva- ture, we may consider the front to be locally flat.
Thus the local growth rate of y is given by
equation (2). However because of the curvature, the
disturbance is also advected (in the rest-frame of the
propagating front) by the tangential component of the velocity. These two effects are described by an integro-differential evolution equation for y(s,t) :
For a flat interface , 0 (s ) = 7T /2, this equation is just
the Fourier transform of equation (2). The Hilbert transform on the right-hand side of equation (3)
expresses the non-locality of the problem. The
second term on the left incorporates the advection of the perturbation along the front, sin 0 asy, and its stretching due to the non-uniformity of the tangential velocity field, y aS (sin 8 ). Equation (3) is a generali-
zation of the Mullins-Sekerka instability [20] to
curved fronts. It can be derived more rigorously (see Appendix A) by considering the perturbation 5 cf> (x, y) to the scalar field .0 0 (x, y ), due to the
disturbance y (s, t), and showing that (in a WKB approximation) it obeys a Laplace equation in a locally Cartesian coordinate system [21]. The normal
and tangential derivatives of 5 0 on the interface are
thus Hilbert pairs and expressing these, via the boundary conditions equations (lb, c), in terms of l’ (s, t) and its derivatives one obtains equation (3).
To study equation (3) it is convenient to introduce the complex function 1/1’ (z, t ) analytic in the upper half plane :
which is the analytic continuation of equation (3). It
is valid within the WKB approximation : as long as 41 (s) varies rapidly and ø (s) slowly the Hilbert
transform H { ø 1Jt} is ø H { 1]1’ } up to a correction
exponentially small in v -1. That assures the consis-
tency of equation (4) and equation (5).
3. The eigenmodes of the evolution equation.
Let us now study the spectrum of unstable short
wavelength modes. These fall in two classes : localized modes which decay as s --i. :t oo and ex-
tended modes which do not. The latter are associated with a convective instability [14, 23] and describe disturbances advected by the flow away from the tip along the propagating front. The localized modes
are associated with absolute instabilities [22] which
are stationary in the frame of the front. These are
the modes we will be concerned with.
Let us look for the unstable localized modes of
equation (5). We set 41 (z, t ) = eut 1]1’ (z ) and assume
1 « a 1 / v . Within the WKB approximation equation (5) has two solutions :
a slowly varying one
and a rapidly varying one
Equation (5) has a third solution which diverges as
Im z - oo and thus cannot be considered. Since 0 (s) - + w /2 as s -> ± oo the slow mode, ’/I’s, is
localized while the fast mode, Vlf is extended. These two modes are related to the two degenerate inde- pendent modes of the planar interface : the Fourier modes with wave numbers ks, k f satisfying equation (2) for a fixed positive value of a (see Fig. 1). By analogy one may think that ’/I’s and Wf f are also independent and conclude that there exists a localized unstable eigenmode for every
positive a. However, in general ’/I’s is not an eigenmode of the problem. If we let lim ’/I’ (z) =
Z - - 00
’/I’ S (z ), then in general as z -. oo the two modes will
mix : lim 1J’(z) = a1Jl’s(z) + b’/l’f(Z). The subtlety
z->oo
arises from the exponential disparity in the amplitude
of the two modes. While either of the modes is
locally an approximate solution of equation (4) a
careful analysis is needed in order to determine the solution globally. It has been described by Landau
and Lifchitz [17] in the analogous quantum mechani-
cal context of reflection of a particle moving above a potential well and requires the analytical continua-
tion of the WKB wavefunctions in the complex plane. The mixing of the wavefunctions near the
singularities of the potential involves solving an
inner problem and matching with the outer WKB
solutions. However we are not interested in calculat-
ing the mixing coefficients (a, b), but want to know if
the resonance condition, b = 0, is satisfied so that
the localized mode 1JI’s (z) is an eigenmode of the problem.
4. Selection criterion.
To derive the resonance condition we follow Pok-
rovsky and Khalatnikov [18] and consider the solu-
-z
tion on the line Re I f d (ks - kf) = Const.,
where both modes are of comparable magnitude.
This line must pass through the singularities of
ks - kf [17 , 18] in the lower half plane which we will
2084
I I I
Fig. 3. - The Stokes line and the complex plane sing-
ularities for the Saffman-Taylor problem.
assume to be at the points z_ and z+ (see Fig. 3). At
these points we define the 2 x 2 monodromy mat-
rices [24] A ± which provide a linear transformation
connecting the outer solution on the left of the turning point to the outer solution on its right : lp R = A± WL with W R, L (,p s R, L, 1/’ f’ L). The ele-
ments of these matrices {A±ij} are determined by the
solution of the inner problem (2) and are thus out of
reach of our WKB approach. Far to the left of
z_ we set 1/’ (1)(z) = 91, (z). Then the outer solution
to the right of z_ is :
Which to the left of z+ we rewrite as :
Then to the right of z+ , the coefficient of 1JI’ f is :
In general b =A 0. However for the symmetric Saff- man-Taylor fingers the magnitude of the two terms
(2) To find that solution, one must go back to the time
dependent McLean-Saffman equations in the ST case, or
to the Nash-Glicksman equations in the DG case. This is
done in references [7, 10] for the stationary (time indepen- dent) solutions.
on the right hand side is the same : the symmetry under reflection s -> - s requires A + = (A - )- 1, so
that Ai A11 = - A+22 A21. The bar denoting complex
11 21
quiring the fast extended mode to vanish as
s --> oo implies :
This resonance condition is similar to the Bohr- Sommerfeld quantization relation and like it, it is
valid for large n. (The constant in Eq. (7) is deter-
mined by the solution of the inner problem.)
Let us now determine the resonance condition
(and hence the spectrum) for the zero surface
tension family of solutions. For the ST problem this family is parametrized by the relative width of the
finger A and is given implicitely by :
singularities of eitl(Z) in the lower half-plane are the
two branch points at Z;j: = 7r /2 (- i :!: J a) (corre-
sponding to q = i ). Substituting the explicit form of ks (z ) and kf(z) (Eq. (6b, c)) into the resonance condition, equation (7), changing variables and per-
forming the integration yields :
This relation defines a set of lines in the a, A plane.
At the selected values of the width, {Am} , the zero
surface tension solutions are a good approximation
to the true steady states. Therefore the spectrum of localized unstable modes of the full problem consists
of the values of o, satisfying equation (8) for a given À m. In general, because of the translational invar- iance,. for a steady state front there should be a
marginal (u = 0) localized mode. On the other hand as seen from the resonance condition the existence of such a mode implies a non-trivial constraint on the shape of the front. For the « true » steady states this constraint would be satisfied identi-
cally by virtue of the underlying symmetry. For a family of approximate solutions it is satisfied at the values of the parameter for which the real solution is
nearby. Hence the existence of the localized zero
mode can be used as a selection criterion. [19]. The
values of À thus obtained (by setting a = 0 in equation (8)) are precisely the ones obtained by a
more rigorous analysis [7]. An immediate conclusion is that the n-th selected state has n unstable localized
eigenmodes corresponding to tip splitting (see Fig. 4) which is in agreement with the numerical observations [12, 13, 24].
Fig. 4.
-The resonant lines for the Saffman-Taylor prob-
lem from equation (8) (the constant was arbitrarily set to 0). For each selected state (open circles) the spectrum of unstable localised eigenmodes is shown (black circles).
Clearly the n-th state (n = 0, 1, 2, ...) has n unstable localized eigenmodes.
.
Similar conclusions can be drawn for DG [21] (see Appendix B). In that case the zero surface tension solutions are parabolas :
(The lengths are in units of the tip radius, p and
therefore v 2 = 2 Ddol V p 2). The anisotropy of the
surface tension is accounted by f ( (J) = 1 - a
cos 4 0 multiplying the first term on the right hand
side of equation (5). For a 1 there are three
relevant singularities : at
The resonance condition turns out to be similar to
equation (8) with the integral computed between
zo and z+. Expanding the wavevectors kf(z) and ks (z ) to second order in w and computing the
resonance condition yields (Appendix B) :
Here again as we set a = 0, we regain the selected
states [10, 11].
In conclusion the general approach proposed
above provides a link between the dynamics and stability of moving fronts and the existence of
steady-states. In the two examples studied here, we
were able to derive the spectrum of unstable local- ised modes for the selected states and to show that the n-th solution possesses n unstable modes. This
implies that the n = 0 solution is the only stable steady state, the one actually observed in real and numerical experiments.
We thank P. Hohenberg, A. Libchaber and A.
Pumir for helpful discussions. D. B. acknowledges
the partial support of a Weizmann Fellowship.
Appendix A.
In the following we shall derive equation (3). Let y (s, t ) be a shortwavelength perturbation on the steady moving interface r 0 : ’Y (s, t) =
exp [S (s, t )/v ]. This perturbation causes a disturb-
ance 5 cP (x, y, t) of the steady state pressure (or temperature) field 00(x, y ). Both y (s, t ) and 5 cp (x, y, t ) vary on a lengthscale of 0 ( v ) which is
much smaller than the local radius of curvature of
To. Consider the analytic function f (z, t) = 5 P (x, y, t) + i 5 t/J (x, y, t). For a point z (s ) on ro, f (z (s ) ) satisfies :
It is straightforward to show that :
Since 5 0 (s, t ) and 6 Q (s, t ) vary on a lengthscale of
0 (v ), equation (A2) yields :
2086
From the Cauchy relations ðn8 t/J = ðs8 cp one ob-
tains :
We may now use the boundary conditions :
to relate anS cP and ass cP to y (s, t ) and its derivatives
on To. (Notice that Eq. (A6) is identical with
Eq. (lb, c) written in a frame of reference moving
with the front.) Let r = ro + e01’(s,t) and 0 = 00 + E50. A perturbation expansion to O(E) yields :
In a coordinate system attached to the interface (see Fig. 2) one has on To :
Since by the boundary condition, equation (A6), ðncPo --- 0, one has a2oo I r = - a2oo I F . 0 And since
ðscPo = v2ðsKO - sin 0, one readily derives equa- tion (3) :
Appendix B.
In this Appendix we shall derive the Bohr-Sommer- feld selection rule for dendritic growth (Eq. (9)).
The WKB equation for the evolution of perturba-
tions on a steady state needle crystal is :
v 2 f ( (} ) a; 1]1’ + a z [ ei 0 1]1’] - i a,W = 0 . (Bl)
Where f ( (}) = 1 - a cos 4 0 is a surface tension
anisotropy factor. This equation has WKB solutions of the form :
The singularities of kf - ks are at the zeros of f (0 ) which for a 1 are located at : z, =
-