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Decay of metastable and unstable states: Mechanisms, concepts and open problems

โœ Scribed by K. Binder

Publisher
Elsevier Science
Year
1986
Tongue
English
Weight
466 KB
Volume
140
Category
Article
ISSN
0378-4371

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โœฆ Synopsis

The decay of metastable states is initiated by a nucleation process in which a free energy barrier is overcome, while in unstable states fluctuations can grow unaffected by such a barrier. The first part of this review considers the significance of the spinodal line separating the metastable and unstable regime. A Ginzburg criterion for the validity of the spinodal line, as well as for the mean-field theory of nucleation and the linear theory of spinodal decomposition will be discussed. Evidence from simulations and experiments will be mentioned.

The second part considers the scaring behavior of the structure function (and droplet or domain size distribution, etc.) in the late stages of the decay: do we understand on which factors the associated exponents depend? Is there a universality as in critical phenomena?

๐Ÿ“œ SIMILAR VOLUMES

Theory of the relaxation and fluctuation
Theory of the relaxation and fluctuation from unstable and metastable states
โœ T. Shimizu ๐Ÿ“‚ Article ๐Ÿ“… 1978 ๐Ÿ› Elsevier Science ๐ŸŒ English โš– 507 KB

Au extension of the usual system-size expansion method is given to study the relaxation and fluctuation from unstable and metastable states. The short-time and the long-time behavior of the moments y(t) and M,(t) and of the distribution function P(x, t) of a macrosco0ic variable x are investigated b