Accelerated Inertial Regime in the Spinodal Decomposition of Magnetic Fluids

Abstract

Furukawa predicted that at late times, the domain growth in binary fluids scales as $\ell (t)\sim t^{2/3}$, and the growth is driven by fluid inertia. The {\it inertial growth regime} has been highly elusive in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We perform coarsening studies of the Stockmayer (SM) model comprising of magnetic dipoles that interact via long-range dipolar interactions as well as the usual Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential. This fascinating polar fluid exhibits a gas-liquid phase coexistence, and magnetic order even in the absence of an external field. From comprehensive MD simulations, we observe the inertial scaling [$\ell (t)\sim t^{2/3}$] in the SM fluid for an extended time window. Intriguingly, the fluid inertia is overwhelming from the outset - our simulations do not show the early diffusive regime [$\ell (t)\sim t^{1/3}$] and the intermediate viscous regime [$\ell (t)\sim t$] prevalent in LJ fluids.