Classical behaviour after a phase transition

Abstract

We analyze the onset of classical behaviour after a second-order phase transition by considering a scalar field theory in which the system-field interacts with its environment, represented both by further fields and by its own short-wavelength modes. Within our approximations we see that the long-wavelength modes have become classical by the time that the transition has been first implemented (the spinodal time).

12 pages, final version to appear in Phys. Lett. B

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