Holographic boiling and generalized thermodynamic description beyond local equilibrium

Abstract

Tuning a very simple two-component holographic superfluid model, we can have a first order phase transition between two superfluid phases in the probe limit. In- spired by the potential landscape discussion, an intuitive physical picture for systems with first order phase transitions is provided. We stress that holography perfectly offers a generalized thermodynamic description of certain strongly coupled systems even out of local equilibrium, which enables us to carefully study domain wall structures of the system under first order phase transitions, either static or in real time dynamics. We numerically construct the 1D domain wall configuration and compute the surface tension of the domain wall from its generalized grand potential. We also numerically simulate the real time dynamics of a 2D bubble nucleation process (holographic boiling). The surface tension of the 1D domain wall nicely matches the final state of the 2D bubble nucleation process when the bubble radius is large enough.

Fate of false vacua in holographic first-order phase transitions

“…As discussed in[3,5], this Euclidean solution is meant to represent the bubble at time zero in Minkowskian signature.2 See also[21] for a holographic superfluid setup and[22] for some considerations on backgrounds dual to confining theories.…”

Gravitational waves from a holographic phase transition

“…It should be noted that all these studies are based on static configurations. Dynamical evolution of strongly coupled theories close to a phase transition has been studied in the context of applications to heavy ion collisions and condensed matter [44][45][46][47], including dynamical phase separation in three-dimensional [48][49][50] and four-dimensional [51][52][53] theories.…”

Uniform quenching processes in a holographic s + p model with reentrance

“…According to experiences in the holographic study with multiple orders, the coexisting solution exist when the free energy of the two single order solutions are very close to each other [17], which can be explained in the landscape picture [24]. In order to have a reentrant behavior for the coexisting phase, we need to get a special relation for the free energy curves for the two single condensate solutions: one of the single condensate solution should be more stable both at the left and right region, while the other single condensate solution should be more stable in the middle region.…”

“…[23]. Later, the domain wall physics and bubble dynamics are studied in a holographic model with a first order phase transition between two s-wave phases [24]. These studies are all based on holographic models with multiple orders in probe limit.…”