2013/06/30 by Jason Olejarz, P. L. Krapivsky
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Combinatorics #Crystal (programming language) #Crystal growth #Diffusion and Search Dynamics #Dimension (graph theory) #Geometry #Lattice (music) #Limit (mathematics) #Limiting #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Octant (instrument) #Optics #Partial differential equation #Physics #Stochastic processes and statistical mechanics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech #math-ph #math.MP #math.PR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.88.022109
published as Phys. Rev. E 88, 022109 (2013) · 12 pages, 9 figures; v2: Figures, clarifications and references added
arxiv created 2013/07/19 · openalex publication_date 2013/08/07 · arxiv updated 2014/07/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study crystal growth inside an infinite octant on a cubic lattice. The growth proceeds through the deposition of elementary cubes into inner corners. After rescaling by the characteristic size, the interface becomes progressively more deterministic in the long-time limit. Utilizing known results for the crystal growth inside a two-dimensional corner, we propose a hyperbolic partial differential equation for the evolution of the limiting shape. This equation is interpreted as a Hamilton-Jacobi equation, which helps in finding an analytical solution. Simulations of the growth process are in excellent agreement with analytical predictions. We then study the evolution of the subleading correction to the volume of the crystal, the asymptotic growth of the variance of the volume of the crystal, and the total number of inner and outer corners. We also show how to generalize the results to arbitrary spatial dimension.