Homogeneous nucleation of quark-gluon plasma, finite size effects, and long-lived metastable objects

Zabrodin, E.; Bravina, L.; Stöcker, H.; Greiner, Walter

doi:10.1103/physrevc.59.894

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…where β = 1/T stands for the lattice (inverse) temperature -so that we are fixing the Boltzmann's constant to unity-, and ∆H(s i , n i ) ≡ H(s i ) − H(s) = 4] is the number of up nearest-neighbors of s i . The rate (3) describes spin flips under the action of two competing heat baths.…”

Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The concept of metastability [1,2] is crucial to many branches of science. Metastable states occur in liquids and glasses, [3] quark/gluon plasmas, [4] globular proteins, [5] cosmological phase transitions, [6] the "standard model" of particle physics, [7] climate models, [8] black holes and protoneutronic stars, [9] for instance. Understanding metastability from a microscopic point of view is therefore most interesting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reentrant behavior of the spinodal curve in a nonequilibrium ferromagnet

2004

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The metastable behavior of a kinetic Ising-type ferromagnetic model system in which a generic type of microscopic disorder induces nonequilibrium steady states is studied by computer simulation and a mean-field approach. We pay attention, in particular, to the spinodal curve or intrinsic coercive field that separates the metastable region from the unstable one. We find that, under strong nonequilibrium conditions, this exhibits reentrant behavior as a function of temperature. That is, metastability does not happen in this regime for both low and high temperatures, but instead emerges for intermediate temperature, as a consequence of the nonlinear interplay between thermal and nonequilibrium fluctuations. We argue that this behavior, which is in contrast with equilibrium phenomenology and could occur in actual impure specimens, might be related to the presence of an effective multiplicative noise in the system.

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Section: The Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reentrant behavior of the spinodal curve in a nonequilibrium ferromagnet

2004

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“…For example, the faster rate of hadronization at large τ c as compared to its homogeneous counterpart will lower the amount of entropy production, which, in turn, will affect the final hadron multiplicity distributions. Although not studied here, the bubble size distribution will also be affected by the dynamics of nucleation [8]. Since the nucleating bubble will act as a source of pion emission, the effect of inhomogeneity can also be inferred through interferometry measurements.…”

Section: Nucleation and Supercoolingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inhomogeneous nucleation in a quark-hadron phase transition

2000

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The effect of subcritical hadron bubbles on a first-order quark-hadron phase transition is studied. These subcritical hadron bubbles are created due to thermal fluctuations, and can introduce a finite amount of phase mixing (quark phase mixed with hadron phase) even at and above the critical temperature. For reasonable choices of surface tension and correlation length, as obtained from the lattice QCD calculations, we show that the amount of phase mixing at the critical temperature remains below the percolation threshold. Thus, as the system cools below the critical temperature, the transition proceeds through the nucleation of critical-size hadron bubbles from a metastable quark-gluon phase (QGP), within an inhomogeneous background populated by an equilibrium distribution of subcritical hadron bubbles. The inhomogeneity of the medium results in a substantial reduction of the nucleation barrier for critical bubbles. Using the corrected nucleation barrier, we estimate the amount of supercooling for different parameters controlling the phase transition, and briefly discuss its implications to cosmology and heavyion collisions. PACS number(s): 12.38. Mh, 64.60.Qb, 05.70.Fh, 98.80.Cq

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“…It is convenient to introduce a similarity number λ z = R C 4πσ/T and the reduced radius r = R/R C [7,8,31].…”

Section: A Statistical Prefactormentioning

confidence: 99%

Nucleation versus spinodal decomposition in a first order quark hadron phase transition

Shukla

2001

Phys. Rev. C

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We investigate the scenario of homogeneous nucleation for a first order quark-hadron phase transition in a rapidly expanding background of quark gluon plasma. Using an improved preexponential factor for homogeneous nucleation rate, we solve a set of coupled equations to study the hadronization and the hydrodynamical evolution of the matter. It is found that significant supercooling is possible before hadronization begins. This study also suggests that spinodal decomposition competes with nucleation and may provide an alternative mechanism for phase conversion particularly if the transition is strong enough and the medium is nonviscous. For weak enough transition, the phase conversion may still proceed via homogeneous nucleation. PACS number(s): 12.38.Mh, 64.60.Qb I. INTRODUCTIONThe hadronization of Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) possibly produced in the early universe or expected to be formed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions [1] has been the focus of much attention during the past few years. The quark gluon plasma (QGP), if formed, would expand hydrodynamically and would cool down until it reaches a critical temperature T C where a phase transition from the quark matter to the hadron matter begins. Although the plasma has to hadronize, the mechanism of hadronization still remains an open question. The percolation model calculations are used in the case of a second order phase transition. In a first order scenario, the dynamics of the phase transition has been modeled in several ways. In the most idealized picture, the temperature of the plasma is held fixed at T = T C until the phase conversion is completely over. Assuming an isoentropic expansion in (1+1) dimension, the hadronization in the above picture gets completed at τ h = r τ C where r is the ratio of the degrees of freedom of QGP and hadronic phases and τ C is the proper time at which the QGP cools down to the temperature T C . In reality, a first order phase transition is characterized by a large nucleation barrier that separates the two phases at T = T C and the hadronization will not begin unless the matter supercools below T C . Alternatively, the theory of homogeneous nucleation has been invoked to study the first order phase transition which is more realistic than the above idealized adiabatic scenario and has been in use for quite some time in the cosmological context [2]. In this picture, the transition is initiated by the nucleation of critical-size hadron bubbles from a supercooled metastable QGP phase. These hadron bubbles can grow against surface tension, converting the QGP phase into the hadron phase as the temperature drops below the critical temperature, T C . For strong enough transition, the large amplitude fluctuations are suppressed so that the nucleation begins from a (nearly) homogeneous background of supercooled metastable phase. This has been the basis of homogeneous nucleation theory [3] based on which the QCD phase transition has been studied extensively [4][5][6][7][8][9]. However, for a weak enough transition, the matter may not ...

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Homogeneous nucleation of quark-gluon plasma, finite size effects, and long-lived metastable objects

Cited by 12 publications

References 49 publications

Reentrant behavior of the spinodal curve in a nonequilibrium ferromagnet

Reentrant behavior of the spinodal curve in a nonequilibrium ferromagnet

Inhomogeneous nucleation in a quark-hadron phase transition

Nucleation versus spinodal decomposition in a first order quark hadron phase transition

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