6533b857fe1ef96bd12b4e19
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Cavitation in 3He-4he Liquid Mixtures
Martí PiManuel BarrancoJesús NavarroDora Marta JezekM. Guilleumassubject
Phase transitionMaterials scienceTransition pointLiquid heliumlawChemical physicsCavitationPhase (matter)MetastabilityNucleationQuantum tunnellinglaw.inventiondescription
Phase transitions under equilibrium conditions are experimentally well determined and take place in the coexistence regime. However, phase transitions do not always occur under equilibrium conditions. As the new phase forms, the free energy of the system is lowered, but the original phase can be held in a metastable state close to the equilibrium transition point. Although they are internally stable, in each case there exists another configuration that has a lower thermodynamical potential. The metastable state is separated from the stable state by a thermodynamic barrier. Due to statistical fluctuations in density or concentration, this barrier can be overcome as the result of the formation and growth of small clusters of the new phase in the metastable state (bubbles in the liquid or droplets in the vapor; bubbles and droplets will be generically referred to as clusters). Nucleation is the process of the first localized appearance of a new stable phase in a metastable state. The nucleation process can proceed by thermal activation or by quantum tunnelling, and depending on the energy barrier the nucleation rate will be very slow or very fast.
year | journal | country | edition | language |
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2002-01-01 |