  We study the effects of thermally induced capillary waves in the
fragmentation of a liquid ligament into multiple nano-droplets. Our numerical
implementation is based on a fluctuating lattice Boltzmann (LB) model for
non-ideal multicomponent fluids, including non-equilibrium stochastic fluxes
mimicking the effects of molecular forces at the nanoscales. We quantitatively
analyze the statistical distribution of the break-up times and the droplet
volumes after the fragmentation process, at changing the two relevant length
scales of the problem, i.e., the thermal length-scale and the ligament size.
The robustness of the observed findings is also corroborated by quantitative
comparisons with the predictions of sharp interface hydrodynamics. Beyond the
practical importance of our findings for nanofluidic engineering devices, our
study also explores a novel application of LB in the realm of nanofluidic
phenomena.
