A nonperturbative test of nucleation calculations for strong phase transitions

TL;DR

This paper uses nonperturbative lattice simulations to test nucleation rate calculations in scalar field theories, revealing significant discrepancies with perturbative predictions and highlighting the need for further validation of nucleation models.

Contribution

The study provides the first nonperturbative lattice computation of nucleation rates in a scalar field theory, challenging the accuracy of perturbative methods.

Findings

20% discrepancy between nonperturbative and perturbative nucleation rates

Qualitative agreement but notable quantitative differences

Motivates further testing of nucleation calculation paradigms

Abstract

Nucleation rate computations are of broad importance in particle physics and cosmology. Perturbative calculations are often used to compute the nucleation rate $\Gamma$, but these are incomplete. We perform nonperturbative lattice simulations of nucleation in a scalar field theory with a tree-level barrier, computing a final result extrapolated to the thermodynamic and continuum limits. Although the system in question should be well-described by a complete one-loop perturbative calculation, we find only qualitative agreement with the full perturbative result, with a 20% discrepancy in $|\log \Gamma|$. Our result motivates further testing of the current nucleation paradigm.