Bubble nucleation in a cold spin 1 gas

Cold atomic gases offer the prospect of simulating the physics of the very early Universe in the laboratory. In the condensate phase, the gas is described by a field theory with key features of high energy particle theory. This paper describes a three level system which undergoes a first order phase transition through the nucleation of bubbles. The theoretical investigation shows bubbles nucleating in two dimensions at non-zero temperature. There is good agreement between the bubble nucleation rates calculated from a stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation and from a non-perturbative instanton method. When an optical box trap is included in the simulations, the bubbles nucleate preferentially near the walls of the trap.

Automated summary

Cold atomic gases can simulate the physics of the early Universe in the laboratory, with features similar to high energy particle theory. This paper describes a three-level system that undergoes a first-order phase transition through bubble nucleation. Theoretical investigation shows bubbles nucleating in two dimensions at non-zero temperature. The bubble nucleation rates calculated from a stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation and a non-perturbative instanton method show good agreement. Bubbles preferentially nucleate near the walls of the trap when an optical box trap is included in the simulations.