Caustic activation of rain showers
arXiv:cond-mat/0604166 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.048501
Abstract
We show quantitatively how the collision rate of droplets of visible moisture in turbulent air increases very abruptly as the intensity of the turbulence passes a threshold, due to the formation of fold caustics in their velocity field. The formation of caustics is an activated process, in which a measure of the intensity of the turbulence, termed the Stokes number St, is analogous to temperature in a chemical reaction: the rate of collision contains a factor exp(-C/St). Our results are relevant to the long-standing problem of explaining the rapid onset of rainfall from convecting clouds. Our theory does not involve spatial clustering of particles.
4 pages, 3 figures
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