Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 21, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
Clustering of branching Brownian motions in confined geometries
A Zoia1, E Dumonteil1, A Mazzolo1
1CEA/Saclay, DEN/DANS/DM2S/SERMA/LTSD, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Abstract:
We study the evolution of a collection of individuals subject to Brownian diffusion, reproduction, and disappearance. In particular, we focus on the case where the individuals are initially prepared at equilibrium within a confined geometry. Such systems are widespread in physics and biology and apply for instance to the study of neutron populations in nuclear reactors and the dynamics of bacterial colonies, only to name a few. The fluctuations affecting the number of individuals in space and time may lead to a strong patchiness, with particles clustered together. We show that the analysis of this peculiar behavior can be rather easily carried out by resorting to a backward formalism based on the Green's function, which allows the key physical observables, namely, the particle concentration and the pair correlation function, to be explicitly derived.
Related Concept Videos
Distribution of Molecular Speeds
Dimensionless Groups in Fluid Mechanics
Radical Chain-Growth Polymerization: Chain Branching
Divergence and Curl of Magnetic Field
Steady, Laminar Flow in Circular Tubes
First Law: Particles in Two-dimensional Equilibrium
Newton's first law tells us about...

