# MICROSCOPIC EQUATION FOR GROWING INTERFACES IN QUENCHED DISORDERED MEDIA

## I INTRODUCTION

The investigation of rough surfaces and interfaces has attracted much attention, for decades, due to its importance in many fields, such as the motion of liquids in porous media, growth of bacterial colonies, crystal growth, etc. Much effort has been done in understanding the properties in these processes . When a fluid wet a porous medium, a nonequilibrium self-affine rough interface is generated. The interface has been characterized through scaling of the interfacial width $`w=[h_ih_i]^2^{1/2}`$ with time $`t`$ and lateral size $`L`$. The result is the determination of two exponents, $`\beta `$ and $`\alpha `$ called dynamical and roughness exponents respectively. The interfacial width $`wL^\alpha `$ for $`tL^{\alpha /\beta }`$ and $`wt^\beta `$ for $`tL^{\alpha /\beta }`$. The crossover time between this two regimes is of the order of $`L^{\alpha /\beta }`$.

The formation of interfaces is determinated by several factors, it is very difficult to theoretically discriminate all of them. An understanding of the dynamical nonlinearities, the disorder of the media, and the theoretical model representing experimental results is difficult to arrive at due the complex nature of the growth. The disorder affects the motion of the interface and leads to its roughness. Two main kinds of disorder have been proposed: the “annealed” noise that depends only of time and the “quenched” disorder due to the inhomogeneity of the media in which the moving phase is propagating. Some experiments such as the growth of bacterial colonies and the motion of liquids in porous media, where the disorder is quenched, are well described by the directed percolation depining model. This model was proposed simultaneously by Tang and Leschhorn  and Buldyrev et al. . Braunstein and Buceta  showed that the power law scaling for the roughness only holds at criticality for $`tL`$. Also, starting from the macroscopic equation for the roughness the dynamical exponent has been theoretically calculated. They found $`\beta =0.629`$ for the critical value $`q_c=0.539`$.

In this paper, we use the TL model in order to investigate the imbibition of a viscous fluid in a porous media driven by capillary forces. We write a microscopic equation (ME), starting from the microscopic rules, for the evolution of the fluid height as function of time. The ME allows us t0 identify two contributions that dominates the dynamics of the system, the “diffusion” and the “substratum” contributions. In this context we study the mean height speed (MHS), the interface activity density (IAD), i.e the density of actives sites of the interface, and the roughness as function of time. We show that the diffusion contribution smooth out the surface for $`q`$ well below the criticality but enhances the roughness near the critical value. To our knowledge, the separation into two contributions for all the quantities studied in this paper and the important role of the diffusion contribution to the critical power-law behaviour has never been studied before.

The paper is organized as follows. In section II we derive the microscopic equation for the evolution of height for the TL model. In section III we separate two contributions of the MHS: the diffusion and the substratum one. We find a relation between these contributions that allows us to write an analytical equation for the IAD. In Section IV the temporal derivative of square interface width as function of time is derived from the ME and the two contributions are identified. These two contributions allow us to explain the mechanism of roughness. Finally, we conclude with a discussion in Section V.

## II THE MICROSCOPIC MODEL

In the model introduced by Tang and Leschhorn (TL)  the interface growth takes place in a square lattice of edge $`L`$ with periodic boundary conditions. We assign a random pinning force $`g(𝐫)`$ uniformly distributed in the interval $`[0,1]`$ to every cell of the square lattice. For a given applied pressure $`p>0`$ , we can divide the cells into two groups: those with $`g(𝐫)p`$ (free or active cells), and those with $`g(𝐫)>p`$ (blocked or inactive cells). Denoting by $`q`$ the density of inactive cells on the lattice, we have $`q=1p`$ for $`0<p<1`$ and $`q=0`$ for $`p1`$. The interface is specified completely by a set of integer column heights $`h_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},L`$). At $`t=0`$ all columns are assume to have the same height, equal to zero. During growth, a column is selected at random, say column $`i`$, and compared its height with those of neighbor columns $`(i1)`$ and $`(i+1)`$. The growth event is defined as follow. If $`h_i`$ is greater than either $`h_{i1}`$ or $`h_{i+1}`$ by two or more units, the height of the lower of the two columns $`(i1)`$ and $`(i+1)`$ is incremented in one (in case of the two being equal, one of the two is chosen with equal probability). In the opposite case, $`h_i<\mathrm{min}(h_{i1},h_{i+1})+2`$, the column $`i`$ advances by one unit provided that the cell to be occupied is an active cell. Otherwise no growth takes place. In this model, the time unit is defined as one growth attempt. In numerical simulations at each growth attempt the time $`t`$ is increased by $`\delta t`$, where $`\delta t=1/L`$. Thus, after $`L`$ growth attempts the time is increased in one unit. In our simulations we used $`L=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}8192}`$ and a time interval much less than the crossover time to the static regime.

We consider the evolution of the height of the $`i`$-th site for the process described above. We assume periodic boundary conditions in a one-dimensional lattice of L sites. At the time $`t`$ a site $`j`$ is chosen at random with probability $`1/L`$. Let us denote by $`h_i(t)`$ the height of the $`i`$-th generic site at time $`t`$. The set of $`\{h_i,i=1,\mathrm{},L\}`$ defines the interface between wet and dry cells. The time evolution for the interface in a time step $`\delta t`$ = $`1/L`$ is

$$h_i(t+\delta t)=h_i(t)+\frac{1}{L}G_i(h_{i1},h_i,h_{i+1}),$$
(1)   
where

$$G_i=W_{i+1}+W_{i1}+F_i(h_i^{})W_i,$$
(2)   
with

$`W_{i\pm 1}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }(h_{i\pm 1}h_i2)\{[1\mathrm{\Theta }(h_ih_{i\pm 2})]+\delta _{h_i,h_{i\pm 2}}/2\},`$   
$`W_i`$ $`=`$ $`1\mathrm{\Theta }(h_i\mathrm{min}(h_{i1},h_{i+1})2).`$   
Here $`h_i^{}=h_i+1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the unit step function defined as $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)=1`$ for $`x0`$ and equals to $`0`$ otherwise. $`F_i(h_i^{})`$ equals to $`1`$ if the cell at the height $`h_i^{}`$ is active (i.e. the growth may occur at the next step) or $`0`$ if the cell is inactive. $`F_i`$ is the interface activity function. $`G_i`$ takes into account all the possible ways the site $`i`$ can grow. The height in the site $`i`$ is increased by one with probability

1. $`1`$ if $`j=i+1`$ and $`h_{i+1}h_i+2`$ and $`h_i<h_{i+2}`$,
2. $`1/2`$ if $`j=i+1`$ and $`h_{i+1}h_i+2`$ and $`h_i=h_{i+2}`$,
3. $`1`$ if $`j=i1`$ and $`h_{i1}h_i+2`$ and $`h_i<h_{i2}`$,
4. $`1/2`$ if $`j=i1`$ and $`h_{i1}h_i+2`$ and $`h_i=h_{i2}`$,
5. $`1`$ if $`j=i`$ and $`h_i<\mathrm{min}(h_{i1},h_{i+1})+2`$ and $`F_i(h_i^{})=1`$.

Otherwise, the height is not increased. The cases (1)-(4) are related to growth due to the neighbors of the site $`i`$. We shall call these mechanisms, growth by “diffusion”. Notice that these growths are not related to the disorder of the substratum. The factor 1/2 takes into account the tie of first-neighbor heights at the $`(i\pm 1)`$-th site in the cases (2) and (4). The case (5) is related to local growth, i.e., if the site $`i`$ is chosen and the difference of heights between the $`i`$-th and the lowest of his neighbors is less than two, then the height of the chosen site increases by one provided that the cell above the interface is active. We shall call this mechanism, growth by “substratum”.

## III MEAN HEIGHT SPEED AND INTERFACE ACTIVITY DENSITY

Replacing $`L=1/\delta t`$ and taking the limit $`\delta t0`$, Eq. (1) becomes $`dh_i/dt=G_i`$. Averaging over the lattice we obtain ($`h=h_i`$)

$$\frac{dh}{dt}=1W_i+F_iW_i.$$
(3)   
This equation allow us to identify the of two separate contributions: diffusion $`1W_i`$ and substratum $`F_iW_i`$ . Yang and Hu  defined two kinds of growth events: an event in which the growth occurs at the chosen site (type $`A`$–defined by us as substratum growth) and the event in which the growth occurs at the adjoint site (type $`B`$–our growth by diffusion). They counted, in numerical simulation, the events number $`N_A(t)`$ of type $`A`$ and $`N_B(t)`$ of type $`B`$, in a time interval $`L`$. They did not identify this terms as contributions to the mean height speed (MHS). Notice that $`N_A(t)F_iW_i`$ and $`N_B(t)1W_i`$ (see Figure 1). We shall see in Section IV that the separation of those two terms allows us to show how the diffusion enhances the roughness near the critical value. The separation into two contributions for all the quantities studied in this paper has never been done before.

The substratum contribution can be expressed as $`fF_i(1W_i)`$, where $`f=F_i`$ is the IAD. We found an amazing numerical result:

$$F_i(1W_i)=p1W_i.$$
(4)   
We could not analytically obtain this result. Notice that $`F_i`$ and $`1W_i`$ are not independent, and that $`fp`$ for $`t>0`$, as we shall see bellow. Using the Eq. (4), the IAD is

$$f=p1W_i+F_iW_i.$$
(5)   
Figure 2 shows both sides of this equation as function of time showing that Eq. (4) holds. Notice the similarity between Eq. (3) and Eq. (5). Figure 1 shows the diffusion and the substratum contributions as a function of the time for various values of $`q`$. At the initial time $`dh/dt=f=p`$. In the early time regime the substratum contribution dominates the diffusion one, because $`1W_i`$ is very small. The substratum contribution dominates the behavior of $`f`$ and $`dh/dt`$ in the early regime. As growth continues, the probability that growth will occur by diffusion becomes larger; the diffusion contribution increases and the substratum one decreases. This can be explained heuristically: inactive sites generate a difference of heights greater than two between any site and his neighbor, enhancing the growth by diffusion. As time goes on, long chains of pinned sites are generated, slowing down the diffusion contribution and hence the substratum one. For $`q<q_c`$ these contributions, which in turn dominate, saturate to equilibrium in the asymptotic regime; while, for $`qq_c`$, both contributions go to zero because the system becomes pinned. At the critical value both contributions gives rise to a power law in the IAD and the MHS. Notice that only at the critical value does a power-law scaling holds for the MHS (see Figure 3), which contradicts . This was shown for the roughness by Braunstein and Buceta .

## IV ROUGHNESS

From the Eq. (1), the temporal derivative of the square interface width (DSIW) is:

$$\frac{dw^2}{dt}=2(h_ih_i)G_i.$$
(6)   
Replacing $`G_i`$ from Eq. (2), the DSIW can also be expressed by means of substratum and diffusion additive contributions. The diffusion contribution is

$$2[(1W_i)\mathrm{min}(h_{i1},h_{i+1})1W_ih_i],$$
(7)   
and the substratum contribution is

$$2[h_iF_iW_ih_iF_iW_i],$$
(8)   
where the relation $`\mathrm{\Theta }(xx^{})+\mathrm{\Theta }(x^{}x)\delta (xx^{})=1`$ has been used to derive the diffusion contribution. In Figure 4 we plot both contributions as a function of time for various values of q. At short times, the diffusion process is unimportant because $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$ is mostly less than two. As $`t`$ increases, the behaviour of this contribution depends on $`q`$. Notice, from Eq. (7), that the diffusion contribution may be either negative or positive. The negative contribution tends to smooth out the surface. Figure 4 shows that this case dominates for small $`q`$. The positive diffusion contribution enhances the roughness. This last effect is very important at the critical value. At this value, the substratum contribution is practically constant, but the diffusion contribution is very strong, enhancing the roughness. This last contribution has important duties on the power-law behaviour. We think that it is amazing how the diffusion plays a dominant role in roughening the surface. To our knowledge the strong effect on the roughness, at the criticallity, of the diffusion contribution has never been proven before.

Generally speaking, the substratum roughens the interface while the diffusion flattens it for small $`q`$, but the diffusion also roughens the interface when $`q`$ increases. The diffusion is enhanced by substratum growth. The growth by diffusion may also increase the probability of substratum growth. This crossing interaction mechanism makes the growth by diffusion dominant near the criticality.

## V CONCLUSIONS

We wrote the ME for the evolution of the height in the TL model. The ME allows us to separate the substratum and the diffusion contributions and to explain the great interplay between them. We found that both contributions to the MHS are related in simple way. We found an amazing numerical result that allows to derive the IAD in a simple way. The analytical prove of this numerical result is still open. All the quantities studied shows, the strong interplay of the diffusion and the substratum contribution in the dynamics. The substratum growth enhances the diffusion; increasing the growth by diffusion may increase the probability of substratum growth, and vice versa. This crossing interaction mechanism makes both dominant at the criticality. The diffusion contribution of the DSIW shows different behaviour depending of $`q`$. In the intermediate regime, when $`q`$ is small, this contribution is negative, smoothing out the surface. It is astonishing that as $`q`$ increases the contribution became positive, roughing the surface. Finally, we are sure that other DPD growth models would permit separation in two contributions with the same features of the TL model.

###### Acknowledgements.

A. Díaz-Sánchez acknowledges financial support from the INTERCAMPUS E.AL.’96 Program to attend to UNMdP.