Instability of quasi-liquid on the edges and vertices of snow crystals
| dc.creator | Sato, Kanako T. | |
| dc.date | 2002-08-02 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T02:46:41Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T02:46:41Z | |
| dc.description | In this paper, we show theoretically that there exists quasi-liquid on the edges and vertices of snow crystals between -4C and -22C, while the basal and prism faces have no quasi-liquid layers. Investigating the macroscopic theory of quasi-liquid and applying to the edges and vertices of the crystal, we find that the quasi-liquid becomes unstable above the critical supersaturation point, which is above the water saturation point. The thickness of this unstable quasi-liquid layer continues growing indefinitely. We interpret this behavior as corresponding to continuous production and overflow onto neighboring faces in a real system. We hypothesize that the unstable growth of snow crystals originates from the edges and vertices, and it is due to the overflow of quasi-liquid from the edges and vertices onto the neighboring faces, which are rough and lack quasi-liquid. Our hypothesis accounts for the qualitative behavior of the relations between the morphological instability and the water saturation in the snow phase diagram. | |
| dc.description | 18 pages, 5 figures | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0208036 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0208036 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/19720 | |
| dc.subject | Materials Science | |
| dc.title | Instability of quasi-liquid on the edges and vertices of snow crystals | |
| dc.type | text |