Evolution of Quasiperiodic Structures in a Non-Ideal Hydrodynamic Description of Phase Transitions

Abstract

Various phase transitions could have taken place in the early universe, and may occur in the course of heavy-ion collisions and supernova explosions, in proto-neutron stars, in cold compact stars, and in the condensed matter at terrestrial conditions. Most generally, the dynamics of the density and temperature at first- and second-order phase transitions can be described with the help of the equations of non-ideal hydrodynamics. In the given work, some novel solutions are found describing the evolution of quasiperiodic structures that are formed in the course of the phase transitions. Although this consideration is very general, particular examples of quark-hadron and nuclear liquid-gas first-order phase transitions to the uniform k 0 = 0 state and of a pion-condensate second-order phase transition to a non-uniform k 0 ≠ 0 state in dense baryon matter are considered.