Precise determination of the long-time asymptotics of the diffusion spreadability of two-phase media
Phys. Rev. E 113, 065421 – Published 23 June, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9vyf-br6d
Abstract
The time-dependent diffusion spreadability is a powerful dynamical probe of the microstructure of two-phase heterogeneous media across length scales [S. Torquato Phys. Rev. E 104, 054102 (2021)]. The spreadability can be exactly represented as a certain functional of the spectral density , where is the wave vector. Experimentally, it is intimately related to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements in fluid-saturated media. The short-, intermediate-, and long-time behavior of the spreadability reflects structural features at small, intermediate, and large length scales, respectively. It has been shown that when the spectral density takes the power-law form as the wave number tends to zero, the normalized excess spreadability [proportional to scales as in the long-time limit , enabling one to determine the infinite-wavelength scaling exponent . An algorithm that allows one to reliably extract the exponent from long-time spreadability data was previously devised [H. Wang and S. Torquato, Phys. Rev. Appl. 17, 034022 (2022)]. In this paper, we further improve this procedure to obtain even more accurately by incorporating higher-order correction terms to the long-time asymptotics and by utilizing analyticity properties of at the origin. We illustrate our procedure by analyzing hyperuniform (), typical nonhyperuniform (), and antihyperuniform () models of two-phase media. In addition, by combining the large- asymptotic expansion of with the small- expansion, we have devised a two-point Padé approximant to accurately approximate for all with just a few parameters. Our findings facilitate the characterization of the microstructure of two-phase media across length scales as obtained from numerical spreadability data or experimental data obtained from NMR relaxation measurements. Our work can also be applied in the inverse design of two-phase microstructures with targeted spreadability behaviors.