Effects of the cosmological expansion on the bubble nucleation rate for relativistic first-order phase transitions

Abstract

I calculate the first corrections to the dynamical pre-exponential factor of the bubble nucleation rate for a relativistic first-order phase transition in an expanding cosmological background by estimating the effects of the Hubble expansion rate on the critical bubbles of Langer's statistical theory of metastability. I also comment on possible applications and problems that arise when one considers the field theoretical extensions of these results (the Coleman-De Luccia and Hawking-Moss instantons and decay rates).

14 pages, LaTeX, no figures, final version to appear in PRD

References in corpus (7)

• Gravitational wave generation from bubble collisions in first-order phase transitions: an analytic approach
• Thermal derivation of the Coleman-De Luccia tunneling prescription
• Emergence of Oscillons in an Expanding Background
• Transitions Between de Sitter Minima
• Dark energy, the colored anti-de Sitter vacuum, and LHC phenomenology
• Supercooling and phase coexistence in cosmological phase transitions
• Bubbling the False Vacuum Away