Bubble nucleation and growth in very strong cosmological phase transitions

Understand

Strongly first-order phase transitions, i.e., those with a large order parameter, are characterized by a considerable supercooling and high velocities of phase transition fronts.

• A very strong phase transition may have important cosmological consequences due to the departures from equilibrium caused in the plasma.
• In general, there is a limit to the strength, since the metastability of the old phase may prevent the transition to complete.
• Near this limit, the bubble nucleation rate achieves a maximum and thus departs from the widely assumed behavior in which it grows exponentially with time.