Related papers: Critical Slowing Down and Defect Formation
The equilibrium properties of classical self-gravitating systems in the grand canonical ensemble are studied by using the correspondence with an euclidean field theory with infrared and ultraviolet cutoffs. It is shown that the system…
In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the progress of true-vacuum bubbles is expected to be significantly retarded by the interaction between the bubble wall and the hot plasma. It has been claimed that this leads to a significant…
The theory of second order phase transitions is one of the foundations of modern statistical mechanics and condensed matter theory. A central concept is the observable `order parameter', whose non-zero average value characterizes one or…
Classical defects (monopoles, vortices, etc.) are a characteristic consequence of many phase transitions of quantum fields. Most likely these include transitions in the early universe and such defects would be expected to be present in the…
Temporal evolution of a comoving qubit coupled to a scalar field in de Sitter space is studied with an emphasis on reliable extraction of late-time behaviour. The phenomenon of critical slowing down is observed if the effective mass is…
In the context of current particle physics theories, it is quite likely that topological defects may be present in our universe. An observation of these fossils from the early universe would lead to invaluable insight into cosmology and…
Defects in superfluid 3He, high-Tc superconductors, QCD colour superfluids and cosmic vortons can possess (anti)ferromagnetic cores, and their generalisations. In each case there is a second order parameter whose value is zero in the bulk…
We solve dynamical equations of motion to determine the conditions under which an over-dense region in the early universe will lead to collapse to a black hole, starting from horizon crossing of the over-dense region to the point of…
We simulate the production of vortices in a first order phase transition at finite temperature. The transition is carried out by randomly nucleating critical bubbles and the effects of thermal fluctuations (which could be relevant for…
We present a phenomenological description of the critical slowing down associated with period-doubling bifurcations in discrete dynamical systems. Starting from a local Taylor expansion around the fixed point and the bifurcation parameter,…
Experimentally there exist many materials with first-order phase transitions at finite temperature that display quantum criticality. Classically a strain-energy density coupling is known to drive first-order transitions in compressible…
The suppression of order parameter fluctuations at the boundaries causes the ultrasonic attenuation near the superfluid transition to be lowered below the bulk value. We calculate explicitly the first deviation from the bulk value for…
We introduce the theoretical framework we use to study the bewildering variety of phases in condensed--matter physics. We emphasize the importance of the breaking of symmetries, and develop the idea of an order parameter through several…
Traversal of a symmetry-breaking phase transition at a finite rate can lead to causallyseparated regions with incompatible symmetries and the formation of defects at their boundaries. The defect formation follows universal scaling laws…
Symmetry-breaking phase transitions may leave behind topological defects \cite{Kibble} with a density dependent on the quench rate \cite{Zurek}. We investigate the dynamics of such quenches for the one-dimensional, Landau-Ginzburg case and…
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism describes the evolution of topological defect structures like domain walls, strings, and monopoles when a system is driven through a second order phase transition. The model is used on very different scales like…
The universe has evolved through several phases as its various constituents dominated its energy content. Candidate dark matter particles may have undergone freeze-out during any such phase. While the standard freeze-out scenarios have been…
In the framework of the Closed-Time-Path formalism, we show how topological defects may arise in Quantum Field Theory as result of a localized (inhomogeneous) condensation of particles. We demonstrate our approach on two examples; kinks in…
Assuming that the matter filling the background geometry in the Early Universe was a free gas and no phase transitions took place, we discuss the thermodynamics of this closed system using classical approaches. We found that essential…
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism constitutes one of the most fascinating and universal phenomena in the physics of critical systems. It describes the formation of domains and the spontaneous nucleation of topological defects when a system is…