Dynamics of thin fluid films controlled by thermal fluctuations

We consider the influence of thermal fluctuations on the dynamics of thin fluid films in two regimes. Working within the stochastic lubrication approximation, we generalize the results on (stochastic) similarity solutions [B. Davidovitch, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 244505 (2005)] that focused on surface tension dominated regime, to gravity-driven relaxation. In particular, we verify numerically the validity of the results in gravity-dominated regime, and find that fluctuations enhance spreading, as in surface tension dominated regime, even in the presence of a faster deterministic relaxation. Considering further the novel case of fluid droplet spreading driven by surface tension and van der Waals forces, our simulations show that the presence of noise affects the value of droplet contact angle.