Related papers: Non-equilibrium phase transitions in condensed mat…
The dynamics of symmetry breaking during out of equilibrium phase transitions is a topic of great importance in many disciplines, from condensed matter to particle physics and early Universe cosmology with definite experimental impact. In…
Evolution of the order parameter in condensed matter analogues of cosmological phase transitions is discussed. It is shown that the density of the frozen-out topological defects is set by the competition between the quench rate -- the rate…
The dynamics of typical phase transitions is studied out of equilibrium in weakly coupled inflaton-type scalar field theories in Minkowski space. The shortcomings of the effective potential and equilibrium descriptions are pointed out. A…
The ordering dynamics of the Higgs field is studied, using techniques inspired by the study of phase ordering in condensed matter physics, as a first step to understanding the evolution of cosmic structure through the formation of…
The dynamics of a symmetry breaking phase transition is studied in a radiation and matter dominated spatially flat FRW cosmology in the large N limit of a scalar field theory.The quantum density matrix is evolved from an initial state of…
In this brief review we introduce the methods of quantum field theory out of equilibrium and study the non-equilibrium aspects of phase transitions. Specifically we critically study the picture of the ``slow-roll'' phase transition in the…
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…
In the $\Lambda$CDM framework, presenting nonrelativistic matter inhomogeneities as discrete massive particles, we develop the second-order cosmological perturbation theory. Our approach relies on the weak gravitational field limit. The…
Gravitation is described in the context of a dilatonic theory that is conformally related to general relativity. All dimensionless ratios of fundamental dimensional quantities, e.g. particle masses and the Planck mass, as well as the…
We study various dynamical aspects of systems possessing a first order phase transition in their phase diagram. We isolate three qualitatively distinct types of theories depending on the structure of instabilities and the nature of the low…
This work is devoted to the study of relaxation--dissipation processes in systems described by Quantum Field Theory. In the first part, I focus on the phi^4 scalar quantum field theory in finite volume in the large N limit. I find that the…
Entanglement has become central for the characterization of quantum matter both in and out of equilibrium. In a dynamical context entanglement exhibits universal linear temporal growth in generic systems, which stems from the underlying…
We present results of numerical studies of the Landau-Ginzburg dynamics of the order parameter in one-dimensional models inspired by the condensed matter analogues of cosmological phase transitions. The main goal of our work is to show…
We study self-assembly in a colloidal suspension of magnetic particles by performing comprehensive molecular dynamics simulations of the Stockmayer (SM) model which comprises spherical particles decorated by a magnetic moment. The SM…
For the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation on a large periodic interval, we show that the transition from defect- to phase-turbulence is more accurately described as a smooth crossover rather than as a sharp continuous transition. We obtain…
This paper presents an introduction to phase transitions and critical phenomena on the one hand, and nonequilibrium patterns on the other, using the Ginzburg-Landau theory as a unified language. In the first part, mean-field theory is…
Imagine a scenario in which the dark energy forms via the condensation of dark matter at some low redshift. The Compton wavelength therefore changes from small to very large at the transition, unlike quintessence or metamorphosis. We study…
The theory of phase ordering dynamics -- the growth of order through domain coarsening when a system is quenched from the homogeneous phase into a broken-symmetry phase -- is reviewed, with the emphasis on recent developments. Interest will…
The dynamics of expansion of the Universe and evolution of scalar perturbations are studied for the quintessential scalar fields $Q$ with the classical Lagrangian satisfying the additional condition $w=const$ or $c^2_a=0$. Both…
The usual thermodynamic limit for systems of classical self-gravitating point particles becomes well defined, as a {\it dynamical} problem, using a simple physical prescription for the calculation of the force, equivalent to the so-called…