Universal scaling effects of a temperature gradient at first-order transitions

Claudio Bonati; Massimo D'Elia; Ettore Vicari

doi:10.1103/physreve.89.062132

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arXiv · 1403.4744

Universal scaling effects of a temperature gradient at first-order transitions

Claudio Bonati·Massimo D'Elia·Ettore Vicari

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Abstract

We study the effects of smooth inhomogeneities at first-order transitions. We show that a temperature gradient at a thermally-driven first-order transition gives rise to nontrivial universal scaling behaviors with respect to the length scale of the variation of the local temperature T(x). We propose a scaling ansatz to describe the crossover region at the surface where T(x)=Tc, where the typical discontinuities of a first-order transition are smoothed out. The predictions of this scaling theory are checked, and get strongly supported, by numerical results for the 2D Potts models, for a sufficiently large number of q-states to have first-order transitions. Comparing with analogous results at the 2D Ising transition, we note that the scaling behaviors induced by a smooth inhomogeneity appear quite similar in first-order and continuous transitions.

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Claudio Bonati, Massimo D'Elia, Ettore Vicari. 2014-06-30. Universal scaling effects of a temperature gradient at first-order transitions. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.89.062132

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