Domain coarsening of stripe patterns close to onset -: art. no. 050101

We study domain coarsening of two-dimensional stripe patterns by numerically solving the Swift-Hohenberg model of Rayleigh-Benard convection. Near the bifurcation threshold, the evolution of disordered configurations is dominated by grain-boundary motion through a background of largely immobile curved stripes. A numerical study of the distribution of local stripe curvatures, of the structure factor of the order parameter, and a finite size scaling analysis of the grain-boundary perimeter, suggest that the linear scale of the structure grows as a power law of time t(l/z) with z=3. We interpret theoretically the exponent z=3 from the law of grain-boundary motion.