Super-heated first order phase transitions

TL;DR

This paper investigates super-heated first order phase transitions, identifying conditions for super-heating and exploring their implications in cosmology and gravitational wave production.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of super-heating in first order phase transitions and examines a dark sector model to understand these phenomena.

Findings

Super-heating can occur in first order phase transitions under specific conditions.

Super-heated phases can lead to additional transitions during cooling.

Implications for gravitational wave signals from bubble collisions in the early universe.

Abstract

We study first order phase transitions that occur when the temperature of the system increases and we identify the conditions that lead to super-heating, a phase where the system can heat up arbitrarily. First order phase transitions with super-heating behave as inverse transitions. We quantify these claims by studying a prototypical example of a dark sector with a large number of interacting light bosons at finite temperature. Depending upon thermalisation, a super-heated phase transition in cosmology is often associated with another transition when the system is eventually cooling down, enriching the spectrum of gravitational waves from bubble collisions.