# Triangular anisotropies in Driven Diffusive Systems: reconciliation of Up and Down

## Lattice Gas Dynamics

The basic discrete DDS model  is an extension of an Ising model with conserved Metropolis dynamics: particles hop with probability

$$W=Min[1,\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta \mathrm{\Delta }H\right)],$$
(1)   
where the energy difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }H=\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\mathrm{Ising}}+\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\mathrm{Field}}`$ includes an applied field. Restricting ourselves to a two-dimensional square lattice, $`\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\mathrm{Ising}}`$ is the standard nearest neighbor Ising Hamiltonian in which a particle interacts with its four nearest sites. \[We absorb $`J/k_B`$ into the temperature, which we then measure with respect to the zero-field Ising $`T_c`$.\] $`\mathrm{\Delta }H_{\mathrm{Field}}`$ is $`+E`$ if the particle moves one lattice unit opposite the field direction and $`E`$ if the particle moves in the field direction, where $`E`$ is the field strength. The dynamics are conserved, so particles hop rather than being created nor destroyed. Restricting the hops to nearest neighboring sites, Alexander et al.  found that the domains formed upward pointing triangles, as shown in Fig. 1.

Natural generalizations of this well studied DDS model include looking at different lattices \[triangular, hexagonal, and Kagomé in $`2d`$\], rotating the field away from a lattice direction , allowing hops and/or interactions with further neighbor particles, and allowing anisotropic hop rates and interactions. Universal results on the basic model should be robust to these sorts of microscopic differences, as differences will certainly be entailed by experimental realizations. \[These changes will affect variously the anisotropic particle mobility and interfacial surface tension of any coarse-grained representation.\] In this paper we allow next-nearest-neighbor hops, where we treat all eight immediate neighbors with equal weight. We label these “nnn” dynamics, in contrast to “nn” dynamics where hops are restricted to the four nearest-neighbors.

## Coarse-grained Dynamics

The simplest coarse-grained dynamics is the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau (TDGL) model with a field. The free energy is given as

$`F[\varphi ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑r\left[f(\varphi (r))+\frac{1}{2}|\varphi |^2+Ez\varphi \right]},`$ (2)   
where $`\varphi (𝐫,t)`$ is the order parameter and the field $`𝐄`$ points down toward lower $`z`$. Within a uniform phase, we use the following Flory-Huggins type free-energy density:

$$f(\varphi )=(1+\varphi )\mathrm{ln}(1+\varphi )+(1\varphi )\mathrm{ln}(1\varphi )\frac{a}{2}\varphi ^2.$$

The system will phase separate for $`a>2`$ with coexistence values depending on $`a`$. \[For $`a2`$ this recovers a more familiar $`\varphi ^4`$ free energy.\] This choice of $`f(\varphi )`$ forces $`|\varphi |<1`$, which simplifies the treatment of the particle mobility (below).

We choose standard TDGL dynamics driven by gradients in the chemical potential, so that the particle current is

$`\stackrel{}{J}`$ $`=`$ $`M(\varphi ){\displaystyle \frac{\delta F}{\delta \varphi }},`$ (3)   
where $`M(\varphi )`$ is an order parameter dependent mobility. A continuity equation is then used to determine the evolution of the order parameter:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi }{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{J}`$ (4)   
$`=`$ $`M(\varphi )\left({\displaystyle \frac{df}{d\varphi }}^2\varphi \right)+E{\displaystyle \frac{M(\varphi )}{z}}.`$ (5)   
The choice of a constant mobility $`M(\varphi )=M_0`$ leads to the field dependence dropping out of the dynamics. The next simplest choice, $`M(\varphi )=M_0(1\varphi ^2)`$, the exact mobility for non-interacting lattice-gases, leads to a non-trivial field-dependent DDS coarsening . Indeed, because the dynamics are deterministic, a semi-quantitative understanding can then be reached for the linear stability of interfaces and other interfacial properties . More generally, we want the mobility to reflect the effective coarse-grained mobility. Starting from a stochastic model with an applied field, the coarse-grained mobility will generally be anisotropic, as can be seen explicitly near the critical point . As a minimal step, we allow for different mobilities for currents in the $`x`$ and $`z`$ directions with

$`M_x(\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`(1+m)M_o(1\varphi ^2),`$ (6)   
$`M_z(\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`M_o(1\varphi ^2),`$ (7)   
where $`m`$ describes the mobility enhancement transverse to the field direction . In the simulations presented here we take $`a2.75`$, so that the bulk phases are at $`\varphi =\pm 0.8`$. We always set $`M_0=1`$, which fixes the overall timescale. The initial conditions $`\varphi (𝐫,0)`$ follows a Gaussian distribution around $`\varphi `$.

## Asymmetry Measure

In order to quantitatively compare the models, we need a measure of triangular anisotropy. We use the microscopic measure shown in Fig. 2. That is, we examine all squares of four nearest-neighbor sites on our lattice and define $`n_{up}`$ as the number of squares in which the bottom two sites are positive but the top two sites have opposite signs. These configurations point “upward”. A similar definition is used for $`n_{down}`$. The normalized asymmetry measure is then

$$asym=\frac{n_{up}n_{down}}{n_{up}+n_{down}},$$
(8)   
so that $`asym=1`$ if all triangles are upward pointing and $`asym=1`$ if all triangles are downward pointing. Squares with more or less than three filled sites are not counted. The same measure is used for the continuum model except we look at four neighboring mesh points and count ‘full’ and ‘empty’ as $`\varphi >0`$ and $`\varphi <0`$, respectively. \[In practice an equivalent asymmetry measure for the ‘empty’ phase can be constructed. Similar results are obtained.\] Our measure is quantitatively different from that of Alexander et al  where normalization drives their asymmetry towards zero as domains grow larger, however we obtain the same qualitative sign of the triangular asymmetry. We prefer our measure since it only depends on the shapes of triangles and not their size, at least in the coarse-grained formulation. It qualitatively agrees with anisotropies seen “by eye”.

## Lattice Gas Results

By including next nearest neighbor jumps we can flip the direction of the triangular domains with respect to the field. Fig. 3 illustrates our results for the Ising model with nn and nnn hops. This indicates that the sign of the triangular anisotropy is non-universal. We also observe that the evolution is more rapid when nnn hops are allowed, as probed by domain size.

The quantitative evolution of the asymmetry as a function of time for both nn and nnn hops is shown in Fig. 4. The data is averaged over 5 to 10 configurations to reduce the noise. The asymmetry starts small and eventually saturates to an asymptotic value. We cannot rule out further change \[indeed slight decay is evident for $`T=0.75T_c`$\] since there is no known dynamical scaling in the correlations, i.e. no time-independent scaling function.

The asymptotic asymmetry vs. $`T/T_c`$, where $`T_cT_c(0)`$ is the critical temperature for zero field, is shown in Fig. 5. With only nn hops the asymmetry is always positive, indicating upward pointing triangles, and increases with decreasing temperature. We note that the anisotropy measure is continuous across $`T_c(E)`$ (which ranges from $`T_c(0)`$ to approximately $`1.4T_c(0)`$ at $`E=\mathrm{}`$ ). At $`T_c(E)`$ we would expect surface tensions and particle mobilities to be isotropic in a small field, and so we attribute the residual anisotropy to the field. \[We note that long-range correlations can persist into the high-temperature disordered phase due to violations in detailed balance in driven systems .\]

With nnn hops, the triangular asymmetry is small and positive near the critical point. This is consistent with the previous discussion of nn hops. At lower temperatures the asymmetry turns negative. Since the nnn hops should lead to a more isotropic particle mobility, we might infer that the increasing anisotropy of the surface tension with decreasing temperature feeds a negative triangular asymmetry when not sufficiently ‘compensated’ by an anisotropic mobility. Clearly the situation is complicated since to fully characterize the ‘anisotropy’ requires the entire function of, e.g., surface tension vs interfacial orientation. Without actually having a quantitative measure of the coarse-grained properties of the system (surface tension, particle mobility) it is difficult to discuss the exact origins of the triangular asymmetry. Indeed, this difficulty is a primary motivation to explore the coarse-grained picture. Regardless, the particle mobility will depend on the microscopic structure, which in turn depends on the applied field, even at $`T=0`$. In the limit of small applied field $`E`$ additional induced anisotropies should become negligible. We see some indications of this through the reduction in the low-temperature positive asymmetry regime with nnn hops as the field is reduced, indicating that the regime is induced by the finite field. This suggests one possible simplifying tactic: to look at the small field limit. Unfortunately this makes the timescales for numerical investigation of the driven system inaccessibly large. Analytically, this limit has been profitably used by one of us in a coarse-grained analysis of surface instabilities in nearly isotropic systems .

## Coarse-grained Results

The results for the kinetic Ising model indicates that the positive asymmetry measure may be due to anisotropy in the mobility. Therefore to flip the triangles positive in the TDGL model, we allow for different mobilities in the the $`x`$ and $`z`$ (field) direction with $`M_x/M_z=1+m`$. We also varied the bulk coexistence value, the field strength $`E`$ and the initial filling fraction. We found that the primary effect came from $`m`$ and from $`E`$.

The top snapshot in Fig. 6 shows that the triangles are in the same direction as the n.n. kinetic Ising model at early times. This is confirmed by a positive asymmetry measurement at these times. However, the bottom snapshot in Fig. 6 shows that the asymmetry measure becomes negative at late times when the domains are very elongated in the field direction. This transient behaviour was robustly present at all nonzero values of m and E that we tried. However, the early time “transient” regime with positive asymmetry is quite large and can be extended indefinitely in the limit of $`E/m0`$. This is shown in Fig. 7 which shows the asymmetry vs. time for critical quenches at fixed $`m=1`$ and varying $`E`$. This raises the intruiging question of whether the asymmetries seen in the Ising DDS models, where the underlying dynamics are slower, might switch at later times.

## Conclusion

We have shown that the sign and magnitude of triangular anisotropies of growing domains are non-universal in both stochastic Ising and deterministic coarse-grained DDS models. Hence, we see no qualitative differences between these approaches with finite fields, and rather see great promise in using the strengths of each approach to explore DDS phenomenology.

Questions remain concerning the origins of the triangular anisotropy within a full anisotropic coarse-grained model. This must be understood to intelligently explore the parameter space of coarse-grained models. With this understanding, we might even profitably turn the tables and use the triangular anisotropy as a probe of interfacial properties.

We are not overly concerned with the apparent transient nature of the “flipped” anisotropy in the coarse-grained model, since even the stochastic Ising model has not yet been extensively enough studied to tell if the anisotropies hold asymptotically late. However, we will now focus our efforts on prolonging the reversal in coarse-grained models. This provides a motivation to more fully understand the origins of the triangular anisotropy. In the process we would like to develop a more intrinsically coarse-grained measure of anisotropy that can be used equally well in Ising and coarse-grained approaches. We expect that anisotropies in the Porod tail of the structure factor will be the most robust measure, since they directly probe the distribution of interfacial orientations.

###### Acknowledgements.

A. D. Rutenberg thanks the NSERC, and le Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche du Québec. C. Yeung gratefully acknowledges support for this work from the Research Corporation under Cottrell College Science Grant CC3993. We would like to thank Royce Zia for encouragement and discussions.