1995/09/21 by Marcelo Gleiser, Andrew F. Heckler · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #astro-ph #cond-mat #hep-ph #nanoparticles nucleation surface interactions
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.76.180
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 76 (1996) 180-183 · Latex, 8 pages, 2 postscript figures, submitted to PRL. Also available at http://fnas08.fnal.gov/
arxiv created 1995/09/21 · openalex publication_date 1996/01/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A nonperturbative correction to the thermal nucleation rate of critical bubbles in a first-order phase transition is estimated. Using a simple model of a scalar field in a double-well potential, we obtain a corrected potential which incorporates the free-energy density available from large-amplitude fluctuations, which is not included in the usual perturbative calculation. As an application of our method, we show how these corrections can both qualitatively and quantitatively explain anomalously high nucleation rates observed in 2D numerical simulations.