Anomalous light scattering at the surface of growing ice crystals and thermodynamics of irreversible processes

The framework of nonequilibrium thermodynamics is used to study the phenomenon of enhanced Rayleigh scattering from the liquid-solid interface of a growing crystal. The scattering is treated as resulting from small objects of finite lifetime produced at the interface by the growth process and confined thereafter to one phase or the other. The thermodyanmic analysis leads to the formation, adjacent to the interface, of a boundary layer, various properties of which are studied. The analysis is then used to discuss the data obtained in two different experiments on the anomalous light scattering from the ice-water interface. It is found that the various data presented in these two experiments cannot be reconciled with each other in all respects.