# Crystallization Kinetics in the Swift–Hohenberg Model

## Effect of noise.

Let us consider the effect of weak additive noise $`\eta (x,t)`$ in the r.h.s. of Eq. (1). For simplicity we assume that $`\eta `$ is delta-correlated noise with the intensity (temperature) $`T`$:

$$\eta (x,t)\eta (x^{},t^{})=T\delta (xx^{})\delta (tt^{}).$$

In the presence of noise, there is no sharp threshold for the onset of motion at $`ϵ<ϵ_c`$. Instead, thermally-activated motion (creep) occurs at $`ϵ>ϵ_c`$ (see Fig. 5). In this case the average creep velocity is determined by the intensity of noise. For $`ϵ<ϵ_c`$ the noise will slightly increase the speed of the front. In contrast to the deterministic motion, the intervals between consecutive nucleation events are random.

In order to estimate the effect of the noise at $`\delta >0`$, we will treat $`\eta `$ as small perturbation. In this analysis, we shall not introduce scaling explicitly, since the scaling of noise that is comparable by its effect with deterministic perturbations cannot be determined a priori. Following the lines of the above analysis, we project noise at the zero mode to obtain the solvability condition

$$\alpha \dot{a}=\delta ^{1/2}(\beta \gamma a^2)+\delta ^{1/2}\stackrel{~}{\eta }(t),$$
(5)   
where $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }(t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\eta (x,t)U_1(x)𝑑x`$. For $`T=0`$, Eq. (5) has a stable fixed point $`a_s=\sqrt{\beta /\gamma }`$ and an unstable one $`a_u=\sqrt{\beta /\gamma }`$. At $`a<a_u`$, one has explosive growth of the solution to Eq. (5), while $`aa_s`$ at $`a>a_u`$. Thus, we have to estimate the probability $`P`$ for the amplitude of the zero mode $`a`$ to be smaller than $`a_u`$. This quantity can be derived from the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation for the probability density $`p(a,t)`$ :

$$p_t=\frac{\delta ^{1/2}}{\alpha }\frac{}{a}\left[(\beta \gamma a^2)p\right]+\frac{T}{2\alpha \delta }_a^2p,$$
(6)   
where we used $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }^2=\alpha T`$. This is the standard Kramers problem. The stationary probability $`p(a)`$ is given by

$$p\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2\delta ^{3/2}(\beta a\gamma a^3/3)}{T}\right].$$
(7)   
The probability $`P`$ is given by the integral $`P=_{\mathrm{}}^{a_u}p(x)𝑑x`$. For $`T\delta ^{3/2}`$, we can use the saddle-point method, which gives the following result:

$$P(a<a_u)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{4\delta ^{3/2}\beta ^{3/2}}{3\gamma ^{1/2}T}\right]=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{0.57\delta ^{3/2}}{T}\right].$$
(8)   
Since the time between the nucleation events $`\tau _n1/P`$, we find that the velocity of the front in the stable region is given by $`v1/\tau _n\mathrm{exp}\left[0.57\delta ^{3/2}/T\right]`$.

At very large $`ϵ>ϵ_0=6.287`$, the flat state $`u=\pm \sqrt{ϵ1}`$ has lower energy than the periodic state. Nevertheless, the uniform state does invade periodic state at any $`ϵ`$ because of the strong self-induced pinning. With large-amplitude noise there will be some probability for the flat state to propagate towards periodic state by thermally-activated annihilation events at the edge of the periodic pattern, however t large $`ϵ`$ the probability of annihilation at the edge is of the same order as that in the bulk of the patterned state. Thus, for very large $`ϵ`$ and large $`T`$ we may expect melting of the periodic structure both on the edge and in the bulk.

The above results can be trivially extended to regular two-dimensional periodic structures (rolls) selected by the SH equation . More interesting is the behavior of a 2$`D`$ hexagonal lattice which was predicted by weakly nonlinear analysis near the bifurcation of nontrivial uniform solutions at $`ϵ=\frac{3}{2}`$ and found numerically . We anticipate that propagation of the hexagonal structure into the uniform state will exhibit the same features of stick-and-slip motion as described above, and can be studied by similar methods. For SH equation (1) at $`ϵ>\frac{3}{2}`$, hexagonal lattices coexist with roll patterns which have lower energy, so the front propagation may in fact give rise to rolls. However, the hexagons may become dominant in the modified SH equation with an added quadratic nonlinearity near $`ϵ=0`$, where the robust “crystallization” of the hexagonal lattice is expected. The work on this subject is now in progress.

The authors thank the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, Germany for hospitality during the Workshop on Topological Defects in Non-Equilibrium Systems and Condensed Matter. ISA and LST acknowledge support from the U.S. DOE under grants No. W-31-109-ENG-38, DE-FG03-95ER14516, DE-FG03-96ER14592 and NSF, STCS #DMR91-20000. LMP acknowledges the support by the Fund for Promotion of Research at the Technion and by the Minerva Center for Nonlinear Physics of Complex Systems.