We study universality in the kinetics of spinodal phase separation in unstable thin liquid films, via simulations of the thin film equation. It is shown that, in addition to morphology and free energy, the number density of local maxima in the film profile can also be used to identify the early, late, and intermediate stages of spinodal phase separation. A universal curve between the number den...

We re-explore the kinetics of spinodal decomposition in off-critical polymer blends through numerical simulations of the Cahn-Hilliard equation with the Flory-Huggins-De Gennes free energy functional. Even in the absence of thermal noise, the solution of the discretized equation of motion shows coarsening in the late stages of spinodal decomposition without evidence of pinning, regardless of th...

The ground-state properties of two-dimensional liquid 4 He at zero temperature are studied by means of a quadratic diffusion Monte Carlo method. As interatomic potential we use a revised version of the HFDHE2 Aziz potential which is expected to give a better description of the interaction between helium atoms. The equation of state is determined with great accuracy over a wide range of densitie...

Enhanced production of events with almost equal-sized fragments is experimentally revealed by charge correlations in the multifragmentation of a finite nuclear system selected in Xe central collisions on Sn. The evolution of their weight with the incident energy: 32, 39, 45, 50 AMeV, is measured. Dynamical stochastic mean field simulations performed at 32 AMeV, in which spinodal instabilities a...

We propose the existence of a new feature in the phase diagram of liquid helium 3. Instead of being monotonic in temperature, the liquid-gas spinodal line should present a minimum at 0.4K. In analogy with cold water where this was proposed by Speedy, we explain that such a minimum is a consequence of the thermal expansion coefficient being negative down to the spinodal line. We justify this fro...

We consider the modification of the Cahn-Hilliard equation when a time delay process through a memory function is taken into account. We then study the process of spinodal decomposition in fast phase transitions associated with a conserved order parameter. The introduced memory effect plays an important role to obtain a finite group velocity. Then, we discuss the constraint for the parameters t...