Related papers: Supercooling exit from charge supersaturation
Strongly first-order phase transitions, i.e., those with a large order parameter, are characterized by a considerable supercooling and high velocities of phase transition fronts. A very strong phase transition may have important…
We consider the decay of vortices trapped in the false vacuum of a theory of scalar electrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions. The potential is inspired by models with intermediate symmetry breaking to a metastable vacuum that completely breaks a…
We consider a formalism to describe the false-vacuum decay of a scalar field in gauge theories in non-perturbative regimes. We find that the larger the gauge coupling with respect to the self-coupling of the scalar, the shallower the local…
A relativistic system of electrically charged fermions and oppositely charged massive scalars with no self-interactions, is argued to have a long-lived collective state with a net charge. The charge is residing near the surface of the…
The nucleation and evolution of bubbles are investigated in the model of an $O(3)$-symmetric scalar field coupled to gravity in the high temperature limit. It is shown that, in addition to the well-known bubble of which the inside region is…
If a theory has more than one classically stable vacuum, quantum tunneling and thermal jumps make the transition between the vacua possible. The transition happens through a first order phase transition started by nucleation of a bubble of…
Cosmological evolution of equilibrium plasma with a condensate of U(1)-charged bosonic field is considered. It is shown that the evaporation of the condensate is very much different from naive expectations, discussed in the literature, as…
The theory of false vacuum decay in a thermal system may have a cross-over from predominantly thermal transitions to quantum transitions as the temperature is decreased. New numerical methods and results are presented here that can be used…
It has been shown that four dimensional N=2 gauge theories, softly broken to N=1 by a superpotential term, can accommodate metastable non-supersymmetric vacua in their moduli space. We study the SU(2) theory at high temperatures in order to…
Quantum field theory is constructed upon the assumption of stabilities of the vacuum and of the one-particle state. For finite temperature, the one-particle state becomes unstable because of thermal fluctuations, whereas the thermal vacuum…
In SuperCool Inflation (SCI), a technically natural and thermal effect gives a graceful exit to old inflation. The Universe starts off hot and trapped in a false vacuum. The Universe supercools and inflates solving the horizon and flatness…
We report on the self-induced electron trapping occurring in a ultracold neutral plasma that is set to expand freely. At the early stages of the plasma, the ions are not thermalized follow a Gaussian spatial profile, providing the trapping…
The theory of reheating of the Universe after inflation is developed. The transition from inflation to the hot Universe turns out to be strongly model-dependent and typically consists of several stages. Immediately after inflation the field…
It is known that the present electroweak vacuum is likely to be metastable and it may lead to a serious instability during/after inflation. We propose a simple solution to the problem of vacuum instability during/after inflation. If there…
In the case of a metastable electroweak vacuum the quantum corrected effective potential plays a crucial role in the potential instability of the Standard Model. In the Early Universe, in particular during inflation and reheating, this…
Because of the extreme purity, lack of disorder, and complex order parameter, the first-order superfluid $^3$He A-B transition is the leading model system for first order transitions in the early universe. Here we report on the path…
The assumption that quantum systems relax to a stationary state in the long-time limit underpins statistical physics and much of our intuitive understanding of scientific phenomena. For isolated systems this follows from the eigenstate…
Observation indicates that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating and favours a dynamical cosmological constant, \Lambda(t). We consider the possibility that this is due to a scalar field which has undergone a very recent phase…
The quantum-mechanical and thermodynamic properties of a 3-level molecular cooling cycle are derived. An inadequacy of earlier models is rectified in accounting for the spontaneous emission and absorption associated with the coupling to the…
Cosmological phase transitions are predicted by Particle Physics models, and have a variety of important cosmological consequences, which depend strongly on the dynamics of the transition. In this work we investigate in detail the general…