Growth Kinetics in Multicomponent Fluids

The hydrodynamic effects on the late stage kinetics in spinodal decomposition of multicomponent fluids are examined using a lattice Boltzmann scheme with stochastic fluctuations in the fluid and at the interface. In two dimensions, the three and four component immiscible fluid mixture (with a ${1024}^2$ lattice) behaves like an off-critical binary fluid with an estimated domain growth of $t^{0.4\pm .03}$ rather than $t^{1\mathrm{/}3}$ as previously predicted, showing the significant influence of hydrodynamics. In three dimensions (with a ${256}^3$ lattice), we estimate the growth as $t^{0.96\pm 0.05}$ for both critical and off-critical quenching, in agreement with phenomenological theory.