Nonextensive statistics in viscous fingering

Measurements in turbulent flows have revealed that the velocity field in nonequilibrium systems exhibits q-exponential or power-law distributions in agreement with theoretical arguments based on nonextensive statistical mechanics. Here we consider Hele–Shaw flow as simulated by the lattice Boltzmann method and find similar behavior from the analysis of velocity field measurements. For the transverse velocity, we obtain a spatial q-Gaussian profile and a power-law velocity distribution over all measured decades. To explain these results, we suggest theoretical arguments based on Darcy's law combined with the nonlinear advection–diffusion equation for the concentration field. Power-law and q-exponential distributions are the signature of nonequilibrium systems with long-range interactions and/or long-time correlations, and therefore provide insight to the mechanism of the onset of fingering processes.