The growth of bubbles in cosmological phase transitions

Sep, 1993
30 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 49 (1994) 3854-3868
e-Print:
Report number:
  • HU-TFT-93-43

Citations per year

19942002201020182025051015
Abstract: (arXiv)
We study how bubbles grow after the initial nucleation event in generic first-order cosmological phase transitions characterised by the values of latent heat, interface tension and correlation length, and driven by a scalar order parameter ϕ\phi. Equations coupling ϕ\phi and the fluid variables vv and TT and depending on a dissipative constant Γ\Gamma are derived and solved numerically in the 1+1 dimensional case starting from a slightly deformed critical bubble configuration. Parameters corresponding to QCD and electroweak phase transitions are chosen and the whole history of the bubble with formation of combustion and shock fronts is computed as a function of Γ\Gamma. Both deflagrations and detonations can appear depending on the values of the parameters. Reheating due to collisions of bubbles is also computed.
  • astrophysics: critical phenomena
  • production: bubble
  • bubble: production
  • dimension: 2
  • surface tension
  • correlation: length
  • model: fluid
  • velocity
  • transition: quark hadron
  • electroweak interaction