Statistical Physics and Fractal Displacement Patterns in Porous Media

It is well known from early experiments that in the process of displacing a high viscosity by a low viscosity fluid in a porous medium, one creates irregular and highly ramified fluid-fluid interfaces which are fractals. Such processes and their resulting structures are the central and motivating theme for this commencing talk where stochastic modelling techniques from statistical physics and computer simulations will be extensively applied.