Holographic approach of the spinodal instability to criticality

Abstract

A smoking gun signature for a first-order phase transition with negative speed of sound squared $c_s^2$ is the occurrence of a spinodal instability. In the gauge/gravity duality it corresponds to a Gregory-Laflamme type instability, which can be numerically simulated as the evolution of unstable planar black branes. Making use of holography its dynamics is studied far from and near a critical point with the following results. Near a critical point the interface between cold and hot stable phases, given by its width and surface tension, is found to feature a wider phase separation and a smaller surface tension. Far away from a critical point the formation time of the spinodal instability is reduced. Across softer and harder phase transitions, it is demonstrated that mergers of equilibrated peaks and unstable plateaux lead to the preferred final single phase separated solution. Finally, a new atypical setup with dissipation of a peak into a plateau is discovered. In order to distinguish the inhomogeneous states I propose a new criterium based on the maximum of the transverse pressure at the interface which encodes phase-mixed peaks versus fully phase separated plateaux.

22 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables, 1 dataset

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Transport coefficients of the quark-gluon plasma at the critical point and across the first-order line
• Dynamical evolution of spinodal decomposition in holographic superfluids
• Holographic approach of the spinodal instability to criticality
• Dynamical stability from quasi normal modes in 2nd, 1st and 0th order holographic superfluid phase transitions
• Critical Dynamics in Holographic First-Order Phase Transition
• Mechanical stability of homogeneous holographic solids under finite shear strain
• A simple description of holographic domain walls in confining theories -- extended hydrodynamics