FLUCTUATION EFFECTS ON DENDRITIC GROWTH-MORPHOLOGY

Dendrites are the typical patterns for many anisotropic growth processes. A detailed understanding of their dynamics appears to be crucial for a proper classification of various growth morphologies. In particular the morphology transitions occurring for varying anisotropy were predicted to depend upon fluctuations. In the present investigation we compare analytical and numerical results on the stability of dendrites under influence of external fluctuations. In particular we confirm the previous ideas that the dendrites are linearly stable under influence of noise even in the limit of extremely small but nonzero anisotropy. This supports the concept of a smooth change-over from compact to fractal dendrites and finally to fractal seaweed whose internal length scale was predicted to depend on noise.