Universal energy transport law for dissipative and diffusive phase transitions

Abstract

We present a scaling law for the energy and speed of transition waves in dissipative and diffusive media. By considering uniform discrete lattices and continuous solids, we show that—for arbitrary highly nonlinear many-body interactions and multistable on-site potentials—the kinetic energy per density transported by a planar transition wave front always exhibits linear scaling with wave speed and the ratio of energy difference to interface mobility between the two phases. We confirm that the resulting linear superposition applies to highly nonlinear examples from particle to continuum mechanics.