Crossing a large-$N$ phase transition at finite volume

Understand

The existence of phase-separated states is an essential feature of infinite-volume systems with a thermal, first-order phase transition.

• At energies between those at which the phase transition takes place, equilibrium homogeneous states are either metastable or suffer from a spinodal instability.
• In this range the stable states are inhomogeneous, phase-separated states.
• We use holography to investigate how this picture is modified at finite volume in a strongly coupled, four-dimensional gauge theory.