Geometric aspects of ordering phenomena

A macroscopic system prepared in a disordered phase and quenched across a second-order phase transition into an ordered phase undergoes a coarsening process whereby it orders locally in one of the equilibrium states. The study of the evolution of the morphology of the ordered structures in two dimensions has recently unveiled two interesting and generic features. On the one hand, the dynamics first approach a critical percolating state via the growth of a new lengthscale and satisfying scaling properties with respect to it. The time needed to reach the critical percolating state diverges with the system size, though more weakly than the equilibration time. On the other hand, once the critical percolating structures established, the geometrical and statistical properties at larger scales than the one established by the usual dynamic growing length remain the ones of critical percolation. These observations are common to different microscopic dynamics (single spin flip, local and non-local spin exchange, voter) in pure or weakly disordered systems. We discuss these results and we refer to the relevant publications for details. (C) 2016 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.