Statistical prefactor and nucleation rate near and out of the critical point

TL;DR

This paper derives scaling approximations for nucleation rates in vapor condensation near and outside the critical point, highlighting uncertainties in theoretical parameters and emphasizing the need for experimental validation.

Contribution

It provides new scaling approximations for nucleation rates that account for fluctuation mode uncertainties near and out of the critical point.

Findings

Scaling approximations of nucleation rate near the critical point

Identification of uncertainties in statistical prefactor calculations

Call for experimental verification of theoretical predictions

Abstract

The nucleation rate derived in the classical theory contains at least one undetermined parameter, which may be expressed in terms of the Langer first-principles theory. But the uncertainties in the accounting for fluctuation modes, which are either absorbed into the free energy of a critical cluster or not, result in different evaluations of the statistical prefactor and nucleation rate. We get the scaling approximations of the nucleation rate for the vapour condensation both near and out of the critical range. The results obtained deserve the experimental verification to resolve the theoretical uncertainty. PACS numbers: 64.60.Qb, 05.70.Fh, 64.60.Fr, 64.70.Fx