Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: We investigate the process of phase conversion in a thermally driven weakly first-order quark-hadron transition. This scenario is physically appealing even if the nature of this transition in equilibrium proves to be a smooth crossover for vanishing baryonic chemical potential. We construct an effective potential by combining the equation of state obtained within lattice QCD for the partonic sector with that of a gas of resonances in the hadronic phase, and present numerical results on bubble profiles, nucleation rates, and time evolution, including the effects from reheating on the dynamics for different expansion scenarios. Our findings confirm the standard picture of a cosmological first-order transition, in which the process of phase conversion is entirely dominated by nucleation, also in the case of a weakly first-order transition. On the other hand, we show that, even for expansion rates much lower than those expected in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, nucleation is very unlikely, indicating that the main mechanism of phase conversion is spinodal decomposition. Our results are compared to those obtained for a strongly first-order transition, as the one provided by the MIT bag model.
Authors: A. Bessa, E. S. Fraga, B. W. Mintz
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
OpenAlex ID: W2032232882