Statistical theory of the decay of metastable states

✍ Scribed by J.S. Langer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 893 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-4916
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-4916(69)90153-5

✦ Synopsis

A procedure is outlined for the first-principles calculation of the rate of decay of a metastable phase. The mode1 on which the calculation is based is sufficiently genera1 to describe a wide variety of thermally activated nucleation and growth processes, hopefully even including decay of superflow in liquid helium. The theory provides a definite prescription for calculating both the activation free-energies and the fundamental fluctuation rates which appear in the conventional formulae describing such processes.