Derr, JulienRutenberg, Andrew D.2013-06-192013-06-192011Derr, Julien, and Andrew D. Rutenberg. 2011. "Monodisperse domains by proteolytic control of the coarsening instability." Physical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics 84(1).15393755http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011928http://hdl.handle.net/10222/24838The coarsening instability typically disrupts steady-state cluster-size distributions. We show that degradation coupled to the cluster size, such as arising from biological proteolysis, leads to a fixed-point cluster size. Stochastic evaporative and condensative fluxes determine the width of the fixed-point size distribution. At the fixed point, we show how the peak size and width depend on number, interactions, and proteolytic rate. This proteolytic size-control mechanism is consistent with the phenomenology of pseudopilus length control in the general secretion pathway of bacteria. 2011 American Physical Society.Size distributionarticle841