QCD Phase Transition in the Inhomogeneous Universe

J. Ignatius; Dominik J. Schwarz

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.2216

QCD Phase Transition in the Inhomogeneous Universe

J. Ignatius and Dominik J. Schwarz

Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 2216 – Published 12 March 2001

Abstract

We investigate a new mechanism for the cosmological QCD phase transition: inhomogeneous nucleation. The primordial temperature fluctuations, measured to be $δ T / T \sim 10^{- 5}$ , are larger than the tiny temperature interval in which bubbles would form in the standard picture of homogeneous nucleation. Thus the bubbles nucleate at cold spots. We find the typical distance between bubble centers to be a few meters. This exceeds the estimates from homogeneous nucleation by 2 orders of magnitude. The resulting baryon inhomogeneities may affect primordial nucleosynthesis.

Received 1 May 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.2216

Authors & Affiliations

J. Ignatius^1,* and Dominik J. Schwarz^2,3,†

¹Department of Physics and Academy of Finland, P.O. Box 9, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland
²Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Frankfurt, Postfach 111932, D-60054 Frankfurt a.M., Germany
³Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Wien, Wiedner Hauptstraße 8-10, A-1040 Wien, Austria

^*Email address: janne.ignatius@iki.fi
^†Email address: dschwarz@hep.itp.tuwien.ac.at