Fluctuations and discreteness in diffusion limited growth.

This thesis explores the effects of fluctuations and discreteness on the growth of physical systems where diffusion plays an important role. It focuses on three related problems, all dependent on diffusion in a fundamental way, but each with its own unique challenges. With diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA), the relationship between noisy and noise-free Laplacian growth is probed by averaging the results of noisy growth. By doing so in a channel geometry, we are able to compare to known solutions of the noise-free problem. We see that while the two are comparable, there are discrepancies which are not well understood. In molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), we create efficient computational algorithms, by replacing random walkers (diffusing atoms) with approximately equivalent processes. In one case, the atoms are replaced by a continuum field. Solving for the dynamics of the field yields---in an average sense---the dynamics of the atoms. In the other case, the atoms are treated as individual random-walking particles, but the details of the dynamics are changed to an (approximately) equivalent set of dynamics. This approach involves allowing adatoms to take long hops. We see approximately an order of magnitude speed up for simulating island dynamics, mound growth, and Ostwald ripening. Some ideas from the study of MBE are carried over to the study of front propagation in reaction-diffusion systems. Many of the analytic results about front propagation are derived from continuum models. It is unclear, however, that these results accurately describe the properties of a discrete system. It is reasonable to think that discrete systems will converge to the continuum results when sufficiently many particles are included. However, computational evidence of this is difficult to obtain, since the interesting properties tend to depend on a power law of the logarithm of the number of particles. Thus, the number of particles included in simulations must be exceedingly large. By combining continuum and discrete methods into the same model, we are able to probe the high particle density limit, while still retaining the effects of discreteness. Using this method, we have obtained new results on the roughness of pulled fronts, which disagrees with current theoretical work.Ph.D.Applied SciencesCondensed matter physicsMaterials sciencePure SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/126008/2/3224862.pd