Friction forces on phase transition fronts

In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the microscopic interaction of the phase transition fronts with non-equilibrium plasma particles manifests itself macroscopically as friction forces. In general, it is a nontrivial problem to compute these forces, and only two limits have been studied,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Megevand, Ariel Hugo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/8203
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/8203
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:cosmological phase transitions
primordial gravitational waves
particle physics - cosmology connection
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:In cosmological first-order phase transitions, the microscopic interaction of the phase transition fronts with non-equilibrium plasma particles manifests itself macroscopically as friction forces. In general, it is a nontrivial problem to compute these forces, and only two limits have been studied, namely, that of very slow walls and, more recently, ultra-relativistic walls which run away. In this paper we consider ultra-relativistic velocities and show that stationary solutions still exist when the parameters allow the existence of runaway walls. Hence, we discuss the necessary and sufficient conditions for the fronts to actually run away. We also propose a phenomenological model for the friction, which interpolates between the non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic values. Thus, the friction depends on two friction coefficients which can be calculated for specific models. We then study the velocity of phase transition fronts as a function of the friction parameters, the thermodynamic parameters, and the amount of supercooling.