Density-Induced Reentrant Coarsening in a Two-Temperature System

Abstract

Understanding how nonequilibrium driving modifies phase-separation kinetics remains a fundamental challenge. Here we show that phase separation in a two-temperature system exhibits a striking density-induced reentrant coarsening behavior. Using Brownian dynamics simulations and a coarse-grained field-theoretic model, we find that the characteristic domain size grows as $L(t)\sim t^{1/z}$, displaying a reentrant sequence $(t^{1/3} \rightarrow t^{1/4}\rightarrow t^{1/3})$ with increasing density. While the low- and high-density regimes are governed by classical curvature-driven bulk diffusion, the intermediate-density regime exhibits anomalously slow growth. We show that this slowdown originates from a transport bottleneck arising from the interplay of particle diffusivity, particle availability, and attachment kinetics, which suppresses the effective mass flux between domains. Unlike equilibrium phase separation, where density primarily affects morphology and crossover scales, the two-temperature drive renders density a key control parameter for coarsening pathways. Our results uncover a nonequilibrium mechanism for anomalous domain growth in two-temperature systems.