Defect formation during a continuous phase transition

A. D. PEZZUTTI; L. R. GÓMEZ; M. A. VILLAR; D. A. VEGA

EUROPHYSICS LETTERS

Año: 2009 vol. 87 p. 660031 - 660036

0295-5075

We study the process of defect formation during a continuous phase transition in anoff-critical system. We focus on the spinodal-assisted nucleation regime, where the continuousamplification of density fluctuations induces the pseudo-nucleation of the equilibrium phase.The collision of the different propagating domains produces a domain structure with averagedomain size and density of defects strongly dependent on the cooling rate. The distribution of thetopological defects is in good agreement with the cosmological Kibble-Zurek model proposed to determine the creation of topological defects during a symmetry-breaking phase transition