On the nucleation of hadronic domains in the quark-hadron transition

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates the nucleation process during a weakly first-order quark-hadron phase transition, concluding that spinodal decomposition likely dominates over nucleation even at low expansion rates.

Contribution

It provides detailed numerical analysis of bubble profiles and nucleation rates, challenging the traditional nucleation-dominated picture of the phase transition.

Findings

Nucleation is unlikely even at low expansion rates.

Spinodal decomposition is the main phase conversion mechanism.

Results support the standard cosmological first-order transition model.

Abstract

We present numerical results on bubble profiles, nucleation rates and time evolution for a weakly first-order quark-hadron phase transition in different expansion scenarios. We confirm the standard picture of a cosmological first-order phase transition, in which the phase transition is entirely dominated by nucleation. We also show that, even for expansion rates much lower than those expected in heavy-ion collisions nucleation is very unlikely, indicating that the main phase conversion mechanism is spinodal decomposition.