Ostwald Ripening in Multiple-Bubble Nuclei

Abstract

The ostwald ripening of bubbles is studied by molecular dynamics simulations involving up to 679 million Lennard-Jones particles. Many bubbles appear after depressurizing a system that is initially maintained in the pure-liquid phase, and the coarsening of bubbles follows. The self-similarity of the bubble-size distribution function predicted by Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory is directly confirmed. The total number of bubbles decreases asymptotically as $t^{-x}$ with scaling exponent $x$. As the initial temperature increases, the exponent changes from $x=3/2$ to $1$, which implies that the growth of bubbles changes from interface-limited (the $t^{1/2}$ law) to diffusion-limited (the $t^{1/3}$ law) growth.