2013/03/31 by Ariel Megevand, Ariel Mégevand · 32 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Mechanics #Phase (matter) #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Supercooling #Thermodynamics #astro-ph.CO #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2013/07/045
published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2013(07), 045 (Institute of Physics) · 34 pages, 7 figures. v2: minor corrections
arxiv created 2013/03/31 · openalex publication_date 2013/07/29 · arxiv updated 2015/06/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the microscopic interaction of the phase transition fronts with non-equilibrium plasma particles manifests itself macroscopically as friction forces. In general, it is a nontrivial problem to compute these forces, and only two limits have been studied, namely, that of very slow walls and, more recently, ultra-relativistic walls which run away. In this paper we consider ultra-relativistic velocities and show that stationary solutions still exist when the parameters allow the existence of runaway walls. Hence, we discuss the necessary and sufficient conditions for the fronts to actually run away. We also propose a phenomenological model for the friction, which interpolates between the non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic values. Thus, the friction depends on two friction coefficients which can be calculated for specific models. We then study the velocity of phase transition fronts as a function of the friction parameters, the thermodynamic parameters, and the amount of supercooling.