Phase Nucleation in Curved Space

LEOPOLDO R. GÓMEZ; NICOLAS A. GARCÍA; VINCENZO VITELLI ; JOSE LORENZANA; DANIEL A. VEGA

Baltimore

Congreso; March Meeting of the American Physical Society; 2016

APS - American Physical Society

Nucleation and growth is the dominant relaxation mechanism driving rst-order phase transitions. In two- dimensional  flat systems, nucleation has been applied to a wide rangeof problems in physics, chemistry and biology. Here we study nucleation and growth of two-dimensional phases lying on curved surfaces and show that curvature modies both critical sizes of nuclei and paths towards the equilibrium phase. In curved space, nucleation and growth becomes inherently inhomogeneous and critical nuclei form faster on regions of positive Gaussian curvature. Substrates of varying shape display complex energy landscapes with several geometry-induced local minima, where initially propagating nuclei become stabilized and trapped by the underlying curvature (Gomez, L. R. et al. Phase nucleation in curved space. Nat. Commun. 6:6856 doi: 10.1038/ncomms7856 (2015).).