Journal of High Energy Physics (Jun 2022)

Domain collisions

  • Yago Bea,
  • Jorge Casalderrey-Solana,
  • Thanasis Giannakopoulos,
  • David Mateos,
  • Mikel Sanchez-Garitaonandia,
  • Miguel Zilhão

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2022)025
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2022, no. 6
pp. 1 – 29

Abstract

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Abstract We use holography to study collisions of phase domains formed in a four-dimensional, strongly-coupled gauge theory with a first-order, thermal phase transition. We find three qualitatively different dynamical regimes depending on the collision velocity. For low velocities the domains slow down before the collision and subsequently merge and relax to equilibrium. For intermediate velocities no slow down is present before the merger. For high enough velocities the domains can collide and break apart several times before they finally merge. These features leave an imprint on the time evolution of the entropy of the system, which we compute from the area of the dual horizon on the gravity side.

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