Related papers: Bubble Nucleation in phi^{4} Models at All Tempera…
In their ground states, atomic nuclei are quantum Fermi liquids. At finite temperatures and low densities, these nuclei may undergo a phase change similar to, but substantially different from, a classical liquid gas phase transition. As in…
We study whether a first-order phase transition at the end of inflation can generate the observed dark matter abundance through bubble collisions. The transition occurs in a spectator scalar sector with an inflaton-dependent effective…
We present an experiment on crystallization of packings of macroscopic granular spheres. This system is often considered to be a model for thermally driven atomic or colloidal systems. Cyclically shearing a packing of frictional spheres, we…
In quantum field theory, the decay of an extended metastable state into the real ground state is known as ``false vacuum decay'' and it takes place via the nucleation of spatially localized bubbles. Despite the large theoretical effort to…
Theories with more than one vacuum allow quantum transitions between them, which may proceed via bubble nucleation; theories with more than two vacua posses additional decay modes in which the wall of a bubble may further decay. The…
Cosmological first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) serve as comprehensive probes into our early Universe with associated generations of stochastic gravitational waves and superhorizon curvature perturbations or even primordial black holes.…
In flat space and at finite temperature, there are two regimes of false vacuum decay in quantum field theory. At low temperature, the decay proceeds through thermally-assisted tunneling described by periodic Euclidean solutions -- bounces…
We present results from direct, large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of homogeneous bubble (liquid-to-vapor) nucleation. The simulations contain half a billion Lennard-Jones (LJ) atoms and cover up to 56 million time-steps. The…
Ending the inflation by vacuum decay is considered infeasible due to the graceful exit problem. Even if considering an alternative field other than the inflaton to realize a first-order phase transition (FoPT) during inflation, it is…
We investigate the role of large amplitude sub-critical thermal fluctuations in the dynamics of first order phase transitions. In particular, we obtain a kinetic equation for the number density of sub-critical fluctuations of the…
In this paper I discuss how to consistently incorporate higher-order corrections to the bubble-nucleation rate at finite temperature. Doing so I examine the merits of different approaches, with the goal of reducing uncertainties for…
We use analytic estimates and numerical simulations to explore the stochastic approach to vacuum decay. According to this approach, the time derivative of a scalar field, which is in a local vacuum state, develops a large fluctuation and…
We investigate the role played by subcritical bubbles at the onset of the electroweak phase transition. Treating the configuration modelling the thermal fluctuations around the homogeneous zero configuration of the Higgs field as a…
We consider non-perturbative solutions of the Weinberg-Salam model at finite temperature. We employ an effective temperature-dependent potential yielding a first order phase transition. In the region of the phase transition, there exist two…
At the extreme densities reached in the core of neutron stars, it is possible that quark deconfined matter is produced. The formation of this new phase of strongly interacting matter is likely to occur via a first-order phase transition for…
The classical nucleation equation, applied to two liquids, is completed by an additional enthalpy for solid supercluster formation governing the liquid and glass transformations. This model, successfully applied to d-mannitol, triphenyl…
Metastability is a quintessential feature of first order quantum phase transitions, which is lost either by dynamical instability or by nucleating bubbles of a true vacuum through quantum tunneling. By considering a drive across the first…
Free energy as a function of temperature and the bubble radius is determined for spherical bubbles created in cosmological first order phase transitions. The phase transition is assumed to be driven by an order parameter (e.g. a Higgs…
The temperature induced phase transition is investigated in the one-component scalar field \phi^4 model on the lattice. Using the GPU cluster a huge amount of Monte Carlo simulation data is collected for a wide interval of coupling values.…
We analyze the properties of naturally formed nano-bubbles in Lennard-Jones molecular dynamics simulations of liquid-to-vapor nucleation in the boiling and the cavitation regimes. The large computational volumes provide a realistic…