Classical and stochastic Laplacian growth (Q476622)

The book concerns the two-dimensional Hele-Shaw theory. The main point is here to describe the motion of the free boundary of the incompressible viscous liquid, for example in a Hele-Shaw cell. The Hele-Shaw cell consists of two narrow parallel plates with a hole in one of the plates where the fluid is injectured or suctioned. Let \(\Omega(t)\) be a bounded simply connected domain in the complex \(z\)-plane occupied by the fluid at time \(t\). It is assumed that the single suction/injection well is placed at the origin, and that the strength \(Q\) of injection/suction is constant, where \(Q\) is positive in the case of injection and negative in the suction case. The pressure \(p(z,t)\) satisfies \(-\triangle p(z,t)=Q\delta_0(z)\) in \(\Omega(t)\) and the boundary condition is \(p(z,t)=0\) on \(\Gamma(t)=\partial \Omega(t)\), where \(\delta_0(z)\) denotes the Dirac distribution supported at the origin. The pressure is given by \(p(z,t)=Q\;G_{\Omega(t)}(z,0)\), where \(G_\Omega (z,a)\) is the Green function of a domain \(\Omega\) with the properties \(G_\Omega (z,a)=-(1/2\pi)\ln |z-a|\)+harmonic function and \(G_\Omega(z,a)=0\) at \(\partial\Omega\). The assumptions on the fluid admit to derive an equation for the free boundary \(\Gamma(t)\). Let \(f(\zeta,t)\) be the conformal mapping from the unit disk \(|\zeta|<1\) onto the domain \(\Omega(t)\) such that \(f(0,t)=0\), \(f'(0,t)>0\). The function \(f(\zeta,0)=f_0(\zeta)\) parametrizises the initial boundary \(\Gamma_0=\{f_0(e^{i\theta}),\;\theta\in[0,2\pi)\}\), and the moving boundary is given by \(\Gamma(t)=\{f(e^{i\theta},t),\;\theta\in[0,2\pi)\}\). Finally, it turns out that \(f\) satisfies the Polubarinova-Galin equation \(\text{Re}[\dot{f}(\zeta,t)\overline{\zeta f'(\zeta,t)}]=Q/(2\pi)\), where \(\zeta=e^{i\theta}\), \(f'=\partial f/\partial\zeta\) and \(\dot{f}=\partial f/\partial t\). The main body of the book concerns this equation. In particular, the authors present a series of interesting explicit solutions and their properties. The content of the book is organized in nine chapters: Introduction and Background, Rational and Other Explicit Solutions, Weak Solutions and Related Topics, Geometric Properties, Capacities and Isoperimetric Inequalities, Laplacian Growth and Random Matrix Theory, Integrability and Moments, Shape Evolution and Integrability, Stochastic Löwner and Löwner-Kufarev Evolution. The book concludes with lists of references and symbols and an index register.