Bubble nucleation and growth in slow cosmological phase transitions

Abstract

We study the dynamics of cosmological phase transitions in the case of small velocities of bubble walls, v w < 0.1. We discuss the conditions in which this scenario arises in a physical model, and we compute the development of the phase transition. We consider different kinds of approximations and refinements for relevant aspects of the dynamics, such as the dependence of the wall velocity on hydrodynamics, the distribution of the latent heat, and the variation of the nucleation rate. Although in this case the common simplifications of a constant wall velocity and an exponential nucleation rate break down due to reheating, we show that a delta-function rate and a velocity which depends linearly on the temperature give a good description of the dynamics and allow to solve the evolution analytically. We also consider a Gaussian nucleation rate, which gives a more precise result for the bubble size distribution. We discuss the implications for the computation of cosmic remnants.

How Nonassociative Geometry Describes a Discrete Spacetime

“…This multiverse state can be metastable and, as a result of the first-order phase transition, the nucleation of bubbles may occur and lead to inflation. Indeed, if the duration of the phase transition is short enough, bubble nucleation of the new phase may have an exponential character [94][95][96]. Thus, in our model the post-inflationary Universe is the result of first-order inflation, occurring during a strong first-order phase transition [97][98][99] (Figure 11 complexes as illustrated in Figure 9.…”

Bubble wall correlations in cosmological phase transitions

“…However, we must also take into account Eq. (46). In particular, in this limit many points on each surface must be eaten by the other bubble (here, we are assuming that p 0 is not).…”

“…With these approximations, analytic expressions for the development of the phase transition were obtained in Ref. [46]. Due to the high sensitivity of the nucleation rate with the temperature, a simultaneous nucleation at a certain time t à (corresponding to the minimum temperature reached T à ) is a good approximation.…”

“…There are two well-differentiated behaviors depending on whether the value of q is greater or less than 1 [46]. For q < 1 the function RðtÞ can be approximated by the relation…”

Energy budget of cosmological first-order phase transition in FLRWbackground

“…It is worth noting that, the fast and slow first-order phase transitions here are classified according to their nucleation rate of either monotonic or non-monotonic types. The first-order phase transition can also be regarded as slow if the bubble wall velocity is small enough on its own as discussed in [28].…”