Giovani L. Vasconcelos: Tripolar Loewner Evolutions

A class of Laplacian growth models in the channel geometry is studied using the formalism of tripolar Loewner evolutions, in which three points, namely, the channel corners and the point at infinity, are kept fixed. Initially, the problem of thin-finger growth, where growth takes place only at the tips of slit-like fingers, is revisited and a class of exact solutions is presented. A model for interface growth is then formulated in terms of a generalized tripolar Loewner equation and several examples are presented. It is shown that the growing interface evolves into a steadily moving finger and that tip competition arises for nonsymmetric initial configurations with multiple tips. Possible extensions, including stochastic tripolar Loewner evolutions, will be briefly discussed.