Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 20: Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena I

DY 20.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 15:00–15:15, H47

Free-energy barrier of the evaporation/condensation transition — •Elmar Bittner, Andreas Nußbaumer, and Wolfhard Janke — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Postfach 100 920, D-04009 Leipzig, Germany

The formation and dissolution of equilibrium droplets at a first-order phase transition is one of the longstanding problems in statistical mechanics. Quantities of particular interest are the size and free energy of a “critical droplet” that needs to be formed before the decay of the metastable state via homogeneous nucleation can start. To study this phenomenon, we performed several Monte Carlo simulations of the 2D Ising model with nearest-neighbour couplings on a square lattice. By using Jarzynski’s equality [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2690 (1997)], we measured the free-energy barrier in a nonequilibrium setup and compare the data with results obtained by equilibrium simulation techniques.