Generalized kinetic potential in binary nucleation

By introducing a coordinate transformation, we investigate the feature of a generalized kinetic potential for binary nucleation that governs the pathw ay of the major nucleation flux. The general conditions under which the maj or nucleation flux bypasses the thermodynamic saddle point are clarified, a nd both the discrepancy in the attachment rates of the two species and the nonuniformity of the direction of the nucleation flux are found to be the m ajor causes of the bypassing. The ridge crossing phenomenon is explained on the basis of the present theory. Binary nucleation reduces consistently to single component nucleation when the attachment rate for one of the specie s tends to vanish. The present theory agrees with the results of numerical simulations. [S1063-651X(98)05612-8].