Related papers: Decay of Metastable States: Sharp Transition from …
Symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions lead to the production of topological defects or domain walls in a wide range of physical systems. In second-order transitions, these exhibit universal scaling laws described by the Kibble-Zurek…
We construct the thermal bounce solution in holographic models that describes first-order phase transitions between the deconfined and confined phases in strongly-coupled gauge theories. This new, periodic Euclidean solution represents…
We consider a Hamiltonian system made of $N$ classical particles moving in two dimensions, coupled via an {\it infinite-range interaction} gauged by a parameter $A$. This system shows a low energy phase with most of the particles trapped in…
We study the crossover from classical to quantum phase transitions at zero temperature within the framework of $\phi^4$ theory. The classical transition at zero temperature can be described by the Landau theory, turning into a quantum Ising…
We consider the de Sitter cosmology deformed by the presence of a thermal bath of radiation and/or time-dependent moduli fields. Depending on the parameters, either a first or second order phase transition can occur. In the first case, an…
We use the two fluid model to determine the conditions under which the nuclear spin-lattice lattice relaxation rate, $T_1$, of candidate heavy quantum critical superconductors can exhibit scaling behavior and find that it can occur if and…
Quantum phase transitions have been the subject of intense investigations in the last two decades [1]. Among other problems, these phase transitions are relevant in the study of heavy fermion systems, high temperature superconductors and…
We demonstrate that a large class of first-order quantum phase transitions, namely, transitions in which the ground state energy per particle is continuous but its first order derivative has a jump discontinuity, can be described as a…
We have studied the transport process in the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in presence of a magnetic field and a dissipative environment at temperature T. By means of imaginary time series functional integral method we calculate the…
Quantum measurement is physically realized through a finite dynamical interaction between a system and a measuring apparatus, giving rise to a continuous transition from weak to strong regimes. While this crossover is well understood under…
The present manuscript gives a theoretical description of the first-order phase transition in a cell fluid model with a modified Morse potential and additional repulsive interaction. In the framework of the grand canonical ensemble, the…
The assisted tunneling of a metastable state between barriers is investigated analytically by means of a simplified one dimensional model. A time dependent perturbation changes the pole spectrum of the wave function introducing a larger…
We show that the rate of switching between the vibrational states of a modulated nonlinear oscillator is characterized by a quantum critical temperature $T_c\propto\hbar^2$. The rate is independent of $T$ for $T<T_c$. Above $T_c$ there…
The low temperature phase diagram of 1D disordered quantum systems like charge or spin density waves, superfluids and related systems is considered by a full finite T renormalization group approach, presented here for the first time. At…
We consider a generic first-order phase transition at finite temperature and investigate to what extent a population of primordial black holes, of variable masses, can affect the rate of bubble nucleation. Using a thin-wall approximation,…
We discuss how the thermalization of an elementary quantum system is modified when the system is placed in an environment out of thermal equilibrium. To this aim we provide a detailed investigation of the dynamics of an atomic system placed…
The origin of the non commutativity of the limits $t \to \infty$ and $N \to \infty$ in the dynamics of first order transitions is investigated. In the large-N model, i.e. $N \to \infty$ taken first, the low temperature phase is…
One possible way in which phase transitions in the early universe may have ocurred is via nucleation of bubbles of the new phase (true vacuum) in the old phase (false vacuum). The technique most widely used to compute the probability of…
Phase transitions impose topological constraints on thermodynamic state variables, masking energetic fluctuations at the phase boundary. This constraint is most apparent in melting systems, where temperature remains pinned despite continued…
Melting behaviors of defective crystals under extreme conditions are theoretically investigated using the statistical moment method. In our theoretical model, heating processes cause missing atoms or vacancies in crystal structures via…