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arXiv · 2610.08154

Fluctuating chemically active droplets

Guido L. A. Kusters·Noah Ziethen·Michael E. Cates·David Zwicker
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Abstract

We study size fluctuations of chemically active droplets in the regime of weak reactions and strong phase separation. By combining a thin-interface model for the deterministic droplet growth with stochastic noise based on fluctuation-dissipation arguments, we report excellent quantitative agreement between our theory and numerical field simulations. Finally, we use our model to infer the effective non-equilibrium potential that governs droplet growth, and show that active reactions that enable size control suppress nucleation.

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Guido L. A. Kusters, Noah Ziethen, Michael E. Cates, David Zwicker. 2026-10-06. Fluctuating chemically active droplets. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08154

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