Hadron bubble evolution into the quark sea

Journal Article · Sun Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.41.2449· OSTI ID:6767891

Freese, K ^[1]; Adams, F C ^[2]

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1. Physics Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (USA)
2. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (USA)

A solution is presented for the evolution of hadron bubbles which nucleate in the quark sea if there is a first-order quark-hadron phase transition at a temperature {ital T}{sub {ital c}} on the order of 100 MeV. We make three assumptions: (1) the dominant mechanism for transport of latent heat is radiative, e.g., neutrinos; (2) the distance between nucleation sites is greater than the neutrino mean free path; and (3) the effects of hydrodynamic flow can be neglected. Bubbles nucleate with a characteristic radius 1 fm/{Delta}, where {Delta} is a dimensionless parameter for the undercooling (we take {Delta}{ge}10{sup {minus}4}, so that the expansion of the Universe can be neglected). We argue that bubbles grow stably and remain spherical until the radius becomes as large as the neutrino mean free path, {ital l}{congruent}10 cm. The growth then becomes diffusion limited and the bubbles become unstable to formation of dendrites, or fingerlike structures, because latent heat can diffuse away more easily from long fingers than from spheres. We study the nonlinear evolution of structure with a geometrical model'' and argue that the hadron bubbles ultimately look like stringy seaweed. The percolation of seaweed-shaped bubbles can leave behind regions of quark phase that are quite small. In fact, one might expect the typical scale to be {ital L}{sub {ital Q}}={ital l}{congruent}10 cm. Protons can easily diffuse out of such small regions (and neutrons back in). Thus, these instabilities can lead to important modifications of inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis, which requires {ital L}{sub {ital Q}}{approx gt}1 m.

• OSTI ID: 6767891
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D (Particles Fields); (USA), Vol. 41:8; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
HADRONS
NUCLEATION
QUARK MATTER
BARYON NUMBER
COSMOLOGY
HYDRODYNAMIC MODEL
MEAN FREE PATH
NEUTRINOS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
STANDARD MODEL
UNIVERSE
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
LEPTONS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATTER
PARTICLE MODELS
STATISTICAL MODELS
SYNTHESIS
THERMODYNAMIC MODEL
UNIFIED GAUGE MODELS
645204* - High Energy Physics- Particle Interactions & Properties-Theoretical- Strong Interactions & Properties
640106 - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Cosmology