Statistical Mechanics of Two-dimensional Foams

Abstract

The methods of statistical mechanics are applied to two-dimensional foams under macroscopic agitation. A new variable -- the total cell curvature -- is introduced, which plays the role of energy in conventional statistical thermodynamics. The probability distribution of the number of sides for a cell of given area is derived. This expression allows to correlate the distribution of sides ("topological disorder") to the distribution of sizes ("geometrical disorder") in a foam. The model predictions agree well with available experimental data.

References in corpus (2)

• Cell adhesion and cortex contractility determine cell patterning in the Drosophila retina
• Topological and geometrical disorder correlate robustly in two-dimensional foams

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Bubbly vertex dynamics: a dynamical and geometrical model for epithelial tissues with curved cell shapes
• Geometrical properties of Potts model during the coarsening regime
• Theoretical approaches to the steady-state statistical physics of interacting dissipative units
• Statistical mechanics of two-dimensional foams: Physical foundations of the model