Directional memory of early spectral selection during spinodal decomposition in finite systems
Abstract
Cahn-Hilliard phase separation turns small composition fluctuations into coarsening domains. In Fourier space, the pattern forms a ring whose angular intensity favors an axis. We ask whether the axis favored early in an evolution remains related to the axis favored later in the same evolution. We analyze two-dimensional simulations with isotropic initial fluctuations and no imposed direction. We introduce Q2, a normalized angular average over the Fourier spectrum, as a measure of the strength and direction of spectral anisotropy. Linear growth amplifies different wave numbers at different rates, selecting an early axis from the angular imbalances in the initial spectrum. This axis remains correlated with the late axis during coarsening. At a fixed time, shallow quenches show stronger early-late alignment. This advantage disappears when the quenches are compared at similar stages of domain growth. Adding the early Q2 to a prediction based on quench depth, mean composition, and box size reduces the mean absolute error for late Q2 by 3.53%. This reduction disappears when only the magnitude of the early Q2 is retained, or when its direction is replaced by the direction from another evolution. The early Fourier intensity therefore carries information about the later state of the same evolving field.
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BibTeX
@misc{yu2026directional,
title = {{Directional memory of early spectral selection during spinodal decomposition in finite systems}},
author = {Boliang Yu and Ruixin Zhou and Zheng Zhang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.07764},
eprint = {2609.07764},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07764},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Directional memory of early spectral selection during spinodal decomposition in finite systems
AU - Boliang Yu
AU - Ruixin Zhou
AU - Zheng Zhang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/07
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.07764
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07764
AB - Cahn-Hilliard phase separation turns small composition fluctuations into coarsening domains. In Fourier space, the pattern forms a ring whose angular intensity favors an axis. We ask whether the axis favored early in an evolution remains related to the axis favored later in the same evolution. We analyze two-dimensional simulations with isotropic initial fluctuations and no imposed direction. We introduce Q_2, a normalized angular average over the Fourier spectrum, as a measure of the strength and direction of spectral anisotropy. Linear growth amplifies different wave numbers at different rates, selecting an early axis from the angular imbalances in the initial spectrum. This axis remains correlated with the late axis during coarsening. At a fixed time, shallow quenches show stronger early-late alignment. This advantage disappears when the quenches are compared at similar stages of domain growth. Adding the early Q_2 to a prediction based on quench depth, mean composition, and box size reduces the mean absolute error for late Q_2 by 3.53%. This reduction disappears when only the magnitude of the early Q_2 is retained, or when its direction is replaced by the direction from another evolution. The early Fourier intensity therefore carries information about the later state of the same evolving field.
ER -