Speaker
Description
Nucleation rate computations are of broad importance in many aspects of physics, especially in the accurate estimation of the phase transition (PT) parameters that enter the gravitational wave (GW) power spectrum. The nucleation rate and PT parameters rely on perturbative estimates. Therefore, they are dependent on the details of the semiclassical picture and different orders of perturbative calculation yield very different results for the bubble nucleation rate. In this talk, I will present our lattice computations of the nucleation rate for a real scalar (ϕ³+ ϕ⁴) theory that exhibits a potential barrier at tree-level. A tree-level barrier is arguably the defining feature of a strong phase transition and would, in turn, result in a stronger gravitational wave signal. Our analysis starts from the accurate estimation of the nucleation rate, extending our earlier results to show convergence with perturbation theory. Additionally, we calculate the thermodynamic phase transition parameters of the system at the percolation temperature and calibrate the accuracy of perturbative approaches.