Related papers: Shape and area fluctuation effects on nucleation t…
Nucleation is generally viewed as a structural fluctuation that passes a critical size to eventually become a stable emerging new phase. However, this concept leaves out many details, such as changes in cluster composition and competing…
The work of formation of a critical nucleus is sometimes written as W=n{\Delta}{\mu}+{\gamma}A. The first term W_{vol}=n{\Delta}{\mu} is called the volume term and the second term {\gamma}A the surface term with {\gamma} being the…
The mean-field approximation predicts pairing and shape phase transitions in nuclei as a function of temperature or excitation energy. However, in the finite nucleus the singularities of these phase transitions are smoothed out by quantal…
False vacuum decay in quantum mechanical first order phase transitions is a phenomenon with wide implications in cosmology, and presents interesting theoretical challenges. In the standard approach, it is assumed that false vacuum decay…
It is shown that diffusion-limited classical nucleation theory (CNT) can be recovered as a simple limit of the recently proposed dynamical theory of nucleation based on fluctuating hydrodynamics (Lutsko, JCP 136, 034509 (2012)). The same…
Classical nucleation theory has been recently reformulated based on fluctuating hydrodynamics [J.F. Lutsko and M.A. Dur\'{a}n-Olivencia, J. Chem. Phys. 138, 244908 (2013)]. The present work extends this effort to the case of nucleation in…
By combining Monte Carlo simulations and analytical models, we demonstrate and explain how the gas-to-liquid phase transition of colloidal systems confined to a spherical surface depends on the curvature and size of the surface, and on the…
We use molecular simulation to calculate the nucleation free energy barrier for the freezing of a 456 atom gold cluster over a range of temperatures. The results show that the embryo of the solid cluster grows at the vapor-surface interface…
Equation of state for systems with particles self-assembling into aggregates is derived within a mesoscopic theory combining density functional and field-theoretic approaches. We focus on the effect of mesoscopic fluctuations in the…
The conventional theory of homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation in a supersaturated vapor is tested by Monte Carlo simulations of the lattice gas (Ising) model with nearest-neighbor attractive interactions on the simple cubic lattice.…
We investigate the role of thermal fluctuations and of the finite number of monomers in small clusters of carbon atoms on the nucleation rate of carbonaceous grains. Thermal fluctuations are due to the quantized nature of the energy…
Homogeneous nucleation of a new phase near a second, continuous, transition, is considered. The continuous transition is in the metastable region associated with the first-order phase transition, one of whose coexisting phases is…
We treat the effects of quantum field fluctuations on the decay of a meta-stable state of a self-coupled scalar field. We consider two varieties of field fluctuations and their potential effects in a semiclassical description. The first are…
In the transition from nuclear matter to finite nuclei, complex finite-size effects which characterise open systems arise, in relation with either the nuclear surface or the bulk. In addition, the non-equilibrium character of the process,…
The nucleation of a droplet of stable cylinder phase from a metastable lamellar phase is examined within the single-mode approximation to the Brazovskii model for diblock copolymer melts. By employing a variational ansatz for the droplet…
The nucleation process under different external conditions is considered. It is shown that the duration of this process can be connected with the microscopic corrections to the free energy of the critical embryo. Connection between…
Quantum fluctuations are ubiquitous and play crucial roles across various scales and systems, such as the Big Bang, black hole dynamics, quantum phase transitions in microscopic many-body systems, and so on. Nuclear fission manifests as a…
We present a simulation technique to evaluate the most important quantity for nucleation processes: the nucleation barrier, i.e. the free energy of formation of the critical cluster. The method is based on stabilizing a small cluster by…
First order phase transitions proceed via nucleation. The rate of nucleation varies exponentially with the free-energy barrier to nucleation, and so is highly sensitive to variations in this barrier. In practice, very few systems are…
A new model to calculate the rate of nucleation is formulated. This model is based on the classical nucleation theory but considers also vapor depletion around the formed embryo. As the result the free energy has to be recalculated which…