LIFE TIME OF BUBBLE RAFTS: COOPERATIVITY AND AVALANCHES

H. RITACCO; F. KIEFER; D. LANGEVIN

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS (PRL)

AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

Año: 2007 vol. 98 p. 2445011 - 2445014

0031-9007

We have studied the collapse of pseudo-bi-dimensional foams. These foams are made of uniformlysized soap bubbles packed in an hexagonal lattice sitting at the top of a liquid surface. The collapse process follows the sequence: (1) rupture of a first bubble, driven by thermal fluctuations and (2) a cascade of bursting bubbles. We  present a simple numerical model which captures the main  characteristics of the dynamics of foam collapse. We show that in a certain range of viscosities of the foaming solutions, the size distribution of the avalanches follows power laws as in  self-organized criticality processes(SOC).