Politi Paolo, Misbah Chaouqi
Istituto di Fisica Applicata N. Carrara, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via Madonna del Piano, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Mar 5;92(9):090601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.090601. Epub 2004 Mar 3.
Dynamics of a one-dimensional growing front with an unstable straight profile are analyzed. We argue that a coarsening process occurs if and only if the period lambda of the steady-state solution is an increasing function of its amplitude A. This statement is rigorously proved for two important classes of conserved and nonconserved models by investigating the phase diffusion equation of the steady pattern. We further provide clear numerical evidence for the growth equation of a stepped crystal surface.
