Living cells use phase separation and concentration gradients to organize
chemical compartments in space. Here, we present a theoretical study of droplet
dynamics in gradient systems. We derive the corresponding growth law of
droplets and find that droplets exhibit a drift velocity and position dependent
growth. As a consequence, the dissolution boundary moves through the system,
thereby segregating droplets to one end. We show that for steep enough
gradients, the ripening leads to a transient arrest of droplet growth that is
induced by an narrowing of the droplet size distribution.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
