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Critical macroscopic quantum effects in quantum nucleation

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Published 22 October 2004 2004 EDP Sciences
, , Citation J.-Q. Liang et al 2004 EPL 68 473 DOI 10.1209/epl/i2004-10232-4

0295-5075/68/4/473

Abstract

It is shown that a characteristic feature of quantum nucleation viewed as a decay process of metastable states is that the theoretical temperature dependence of the nucleation rate indicates a sharp first-order phase transition of the crossover from the quantum tunneling regime to the thermal hopping regime. We, furthermore, demontrate that the experimentally observed temperature dependence of the phase separation of supersaturated 3He-4He liquid mixtures at low temperatures can be understood by the first-order phase transition of quantum nucleation.

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10.1209/epl/i2004-10232-4