Thermal collapse of snowflake fractals

Snowflakes are thermodynamically unstable structures that would ultimately become ice balls. To investigate their dynamics, we mapped atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of small ice crystals – built as filled von Koch fractals – onto a discrete-time random walk model. Then the walkers explored the thermal evolution of high fractal generations. The in silico experiments showed that the evolution is not entirely random. The flakes step down one fractal generation before forfeiting their architecture. The effect may be used to trace the thermal history of snow.