Phase separation dynamics in small-world media

We present results of a numerical study of phase separation dynamics of a two-dimensional quenched system which has a small-world topology, both with and without the conserved order parameter. We examine how the domain coarsening changes with the density of long-range connections (shortcuts). It is demonstrated that the shortcuts have directly opposite effects, i.e., a speeding up of the coarsening process of reaching a fully uniform state, and a freezing of the system in a disordered metastable state. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2007