First-order chiral phase transition in high-energy collisions: Can nucleation prevent spinodal decomposition? art. no. 116003

We discuss homogeneous nucleation in a first-order chiral phase transition within an effective field theory approach to low-energy QCD. Exact decay ra tes and bubble profiles are obtained numerically and compared to analytic r esults obtained with the thin-wall approximation. The thin-wall approximati on overestimates the nucleation rate for any degree of supercooling. The li me scale for critical thermal fluctuations is calculated and compared to ty pical expansion times for high-energy hadronic or heavy-ion collisions. We find that significant supercooling is possible, and the relevant mechanism for phase conversion might be that of spinodal decomposition. Some potentia l experimental signatures of supercooling, such as an increase in the corre lation length of the scaler condensate, are also discussed.