Hydrodynamic coarsening of binary fluids

By suitable interpretation of results from the linear analysis of interface dynamics, it is found that the hydrodynamic growth of the size L of domains that follow spinodal decomposition in fluid mixtures scales with time as L approximately t(alpha), with alpha = 4/7 in the inertial regime. The previously proposed exponent alpha = 2/3 is shown to indicate only the scaling of the oscillatory frequency omega(-2/3) approximately L of the largest structures of the system. The viscous dissipation in the system occurs within a layer of thickness L(d) that also follows a power law of the form L(d) approximately L3/4 in the inertial regime. In the viscous regime the growth is linear in time L approximately t and the dissipative region remains constant L(d) approximately L0.