Nucleation is neither diffusive nor Markovian

by Tanja Schilling (Institute of Physics University of Freiburg, Germany)

Monday 24 Feb 2020, 16:00 → 17:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Rasetti (Dip. di Fisica - edificio G. Marconi)

Nucleation processes at first order phase transitions are usually described in terms of Markovian transition state theories such as e.g. Classical Nucleation Theory. When put into comparison with experiments, these theories describe the correct qualitative behaviour, but the predicted nucleation rates are often wrong by many orders of magnitude. In this talk, we put into question the structure of the equation of motion which most nucleation theories have, i.e. the Fokker-Planck equation.