Bubble Correlation in First-Order Phase Transitions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in high-energy first-order phase transitions, critical bubbles can be correlated and biased, potentially affecting phenomena like primordial black hole formation.

Contribution

It introduces a simple argument showing bubble correlation in phase transitions based on stochastic and threshold statistics methods.

Findings

Critical bubbles may be correlated in high-energy phase transitions.

Bubble bias can influence the spatial distribution during the transition.

Implications for primordial black hole formation are discussed.

Abstract

Making use of both the stochastic approach to the tunneling phenomenon and the threshold statistics, we offer a simple argument to show that critical bubbles may be correlated in first-order phase transitions and biased compared to the underlying scalar field spatial distribution. This happens though only if the typical energy scale of the phase transition is sufficiently high. We briefly discuss possible implications of this result, e.g. the formation of primordial black holes through bubble collisions.