HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION - COMPARISON BETWEEN 2 THEORIES

The classical nucleation theory of Pecker, Doring and Zeldovich is com pared with the Langer coarse-grained field approach to the nucleation phenomenon. Both formalisms have been applied to the condensation from a supersaturated vapor. It is shown that the nucleation rate derived in the classical theory can be expressed in a form equivalent to that of the field nucleation theory. This equivalence selves as an explanat ion of the puzzling fact that the numerical predictions of both theori es for condensation of Xe and CO2 are almost identical though the stan dard analytical expressions for the nucleation rates are different. Th e results obtained can help to link the theories of nucleation and the ir approximations. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.