Finite-Size Constraints on Nucleation of Hadrons in a Quark-Gluon Plasma

We discuss finite-size effects on homogeneous nucleation in first-order phase transitions. We study their im-plications for cosmological phase transitions and to the hadronization of a quark-gluon plasma generated in high-energy heavy ion collisions. Finite-size scaling has achieved an immense success in the study of equilibrium critical phenomena. On the other hand, systematic studies of finite size effects in the case of metastable decays and other nonequilibrium processes are rare [1, 2]. In this paper, we discuss finite size effects on the dynamics of homogeneous nucleation in a first-order temperature-driven transition (For more details, see [3]). In particular, we consider the case of cosmological phase tran-sitions in the early universe [4], and that of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) decay into hadronic matter in a high-energy heavy ion collision [5, 6]. The former might provide sensi-ble mechanisms to explain the baryon number asymmetry i