Breakup of universality in the generalized spinodal nucleation theory

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2004

Abstract

The problem of nucleation near spinodal is revisited. It is shown that the standard scaling argument due to Unger and Klein [Phys. Rev. B 29:2698-2708 (1984)] based on neglecting all but the first two terms of the Taylor expansion of the potential in the free energy functional is only valid below critical dimension. At critical dimension, the nucleating droplet has a bigger amplitude and a smaller spatial extent than predicted by the standard scaling argument. In this case the structure of the droplet is determined in a nontrivial fashion by the next order term in the expansion of the potential. Above critical dimension, the amplitude of the nucleating droplet turns out to be too big to justify expanding the potential in Taylor series, and no universality is to be expected in the shape and size of the droplet. Both at and above critical dimension, however, the free energy barrier remains finite, which indicates that the nucleation rate does not vanish at spinodal as predicted by the standard scaling argument.

Identifier

3542998723 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Journal of Statistical Physics

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1023/b:joss.0000012504.46631.89

ISSN

00224715

First Page

605

Last Page

623

Issue

3-4

Volume

114

Grant

0211864

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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