Hydrodynamic mode Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
A hydrodynamic mode is a long-wavelength collective mode whose decay rate tends to zero because of a conservation law. Coupling to fast nonconserved variables renormalizes its diffusivity and eigenvector.
The thermodynamic order parameter is the conserved scalar composition difference of the binary fluid mixture. The momentum density is an additional conserved hydrodynamic mode; it is not a symmetry-breaking order parameter, but it must be retained because momentum relaxes only through spatial transport.
Composition conservation gives a continuity equation,
The current is the leading isotropic, dissipative constitutive law: it drives material down gradients of the chemical potential. For the Landau-Ginzburg theory
the functional derivative is
These statements give the advective Cahn--Hilliard equation.
Constant mass density and incompressible flow require . Momentum conservation gives the Navier-Stokes equation: material acceleration equals the sum of the Newtonian viscous force , the pressure force , and the Korteweg force . The pressure is the Lagrange multiplier enforcing incompressibility. Together these equations are Model H dynamics; isothermality removes the need for a separate energy equation.
The deterministic relaxation matrix is
Its right eigenvectors are the hydrodynamic modes. Writing and , their decay rates obey