I present the results of comprehensive laboratory experiments and numerical studies addressing droplet growth and droplet size distributions in systems where droplets grow due to sustained supersaturation of their environment.

Both, for droplets condensing on a substrate (like dew) and droplets entrained in an external flow (like in clouds), we observe remarkable shortcomings of classical scaling theories addressing these growth processes. The origins of the discrepancies are identified, and appropriate extensions of the theories are discussed.

The issues about droplet distributions in the atmosphere might have some relevance to climate studies on earth. However, they are potentially much more useful for the description of atmospheres of brown stars and exo-planets.

个人简历：Since April 2007 I am a senior scientist in the Department Dynamics of Complex Fluids at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI DS), and since December 2009 I also hold an appointment as an Associate (“außerplanmäßiger”) Professor at the Faculty of Physics of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. At the MPI DS I run a group of about ten scientists with whom I am working on problems in stochastic thermodynamics, on the ergodic theory of granular matter, and on instabilities and finite time singularities arising in the dynamics of phase separation. As far as applications are concerned I am involved in a European Research network addressing particle dynamics in turbulent flows (MPNS COST Action MP0806 Particles in turbulence), and a BP funded center of excellence addressing multiphase flow through porous media (GeoMorph – Göttingen exploration of Microscale oil reservoir physics).