Eur. Phys. J. B 58, 345-351 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2007-00232-2

Phase separation dynamics in small-world media

Statistical Mechanics Laboratory, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Matsugasaki, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan

Corresponding author: ^a shiway@kit.ac.jp

Received: 31 March 2007
Revised: 24 July 2007
Published online: 8 September 2007

Abstract

We present results of a numerical study of phase separation dynamics of a two-dimensional quenched system which has a small-world topology, both with and without the conserved order parameter. We examine how the domain coarsening changes with the density of long-range connections (shortcuts). It is demonstrated that the shortcuts have directly opposite effects, i.e., a speeding up of the coarsening process of reaching a fully uniform state, and a freezing of the system in a disordered metastable state.