One-sided kinetic solidification dispersion 2026-10-14
Use undercooling , solidification attachment mobility , velocity scale , length and time . Let be the latent-to-sensible heat ratio, , and . In the one-sided liquid-diffusion model, a travelling planar front has and . For a corrugation , the decaying thermal perturbation is , with and the branch . The displaced kinetic condition gives . The displaced Stefan condition gives . Eliminating proves the displayed dispersion relation. Neglect of solid-side perturbation heat flux is part of this model.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 72 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the one-sided thermal conduction model encoded by the requested dispersion relation: neglect solid-side perturbation heat flux, take equal phase densities, and let the normal point from solid into liquid. Write the isotropic linear kinetic undercooling law using the solidification attachment mobility :Here is solid-liquid surface energy, is the sum of principal curvatures, and is absolute temperature. Positive curvature convex into liquid lowers the equilibrium freezing temperature through the Gibbs--Thomson relation. The planar base state has .
Set and defineThe paper's is the latent-to-sensible heat ratio, the reciprocal of the common Stefan number convention. Below, velocities, lengths and growth rates are dimensionless in these scales. In the travelling coordinate , the liquid heat equation gives , while the bounded solid steady field is constant. Matching a decaying liquid profile to the Stefan condition givesThe kinetic undercooling condition is . ThusThe speed is constant for , determined by and the attachment coefficient in the specified scales. Thermal diffusivity sets the exponential decay length , not the selected speed. Including solid-side perturbation conduction would change the stability equation below.
For linear stability analysis, corrugate the interface to and write the liquid perturbation as . The liquid heat equation requiresFor this graph the linearized curvature is . Evaluate the temperature on the displaced interface: its perturbation is . The kinetic undercooling law therefore givesLikewise the derivative evaluated at the displaced surface is , with . The Stefan condition at perturbation order readsElimination proves the one-sided kinetic solidification dispersion:The destabilizing term comes from a protrusion encountering colder liquid; capillarity and kinetic relaxation oppose it.
At , and the base liquid has no thermal contrast generated by latent heat. The interface obeys : positive surface energy damps all nonzero modes, while is neutral at this order. Here the thermal perturbation amplitude vanishes, so the auxiliary decay exponent is immaterial to that pure kinetic relaxation. At , and the formal limit givesFor it has a negative real branch and no growing branch; at the interface branch is neutral. Strictly, is a singular endpoint of the travelling profile: no finite-width stationary exponential connects to the far-field value zero. These stability statements describe the limit of the travelling-front model.
For , assume at small wavenumber. ExpandSubstituting into the dispersion relation cancels on both sides and givesAt the capillary stability threshold for a kinetic freezing front , continuing the same expansion gives : the nonzero long waves are damped even at threshold.
For large wavenumber, multiply the dispersion relation by and eliminate using the thermal equation. The exact algebraic form isIt prevents the uncontrolled replacement when itself is of order . In the usual small-capillarity range the leading results areFor the second result, set in the cubic; its quadratic-order balance gives . Thus positive capillarity stabilizes sufficiently short waves. If also and , the useful reduced approximation isits finite terms should not be treated as a uniform expansion for arbitrary fixed .
For completeness, large dimensionless capillarity has different balances. At , and . For , , so . At , the real branch reaches : for its growth rate is , and for that endpoint is exact. For at this boundary, or for , the selected real- normal mode ceases to exist at sufficiently large wavenumber; the full diffusion problem includes a thermal continuous spectrum and cannot be assigned a real isolated interface growth rate by this ansatz there. Indeed, writing the bulk thermal perturbation as reduces its heat equation to , whose half-line diffusion modes have decay rates for . The thermal branch endpoint is . Loss of a damped isolated interface mode is not a morphological instability.
The approximate instability condition is already clear from the long-wave coefficient: , equivalently . In fact it is exact for growing modes of the present one-sided model. At , let , so . The right side of the dispersion relation becomesFor real , the residual is strictly increasing, sinceTherefore a unique positive root exists precisely when . For , the unstable band isThere are no unstable oscillatory roots hidden by this real-root test. Indeed, if and , the thermal equation implies . For , the imaginary parts of the two equations would require , contradicting . Thus growing modes have real and real .
The sketch shows zero capillarity approaching the positive plateau , weak capillarity giving a positive band followed by short-wave damping, and threshold/stronger capillarity giving damping at every nonzero wavenumber. The zero-wavenumber mode is a translation. As with fixed positive , both the unstable bandwidth and the positive growth rates shrink to zero; the small-wavenumber expansion is not uniform in that limit.
