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arXiv · 2404.01876

A nonperturbative test of nucleation calculations for strong phase transitions

Oliver Gould·Anna Kormu·David J. Weir
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Abstract

Nucleation rate computations are of broad importance in particle physics and cosmology. Perturbative calculations are often used to compute the nucleation rate $\Gamma$, but these are incomplete. We perform nonperturbative lattice simulations of nucleation in a scalar field theory with a tree-level barrier, computing a final result extrapolated to the thermodynamic and continuum limits. Although the system in question should be well-described by a complete one-loop perturbative calculation, we find only qualitative agreement with the full perturbative result, with a 20% discrepancy in $|\log \Gamma|$. Our result motivates further testing of the current nucleation paradigm.

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Oliver Gould, Anna Kormu, David J. Weir. 2024-04-02. A nonperturbative test of nucleation calculations for strong phase transitions. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.111.l051901

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