Phase transitions, nonequilibrium dynamics, and critical behavior of strongly interacting systems

摘要

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In this effort, large-scale simulations of strongly interacting systems were performed and a variety of approaches to the nonequilibrium dynamics of phase transitions and critical behavior were investigated. Focus areas included (1) the finite-temperature quantum chromodynamics phase transition and nonequilibrium dynamics of a new phase of matter (the quark-gluon plasma) above the critical temperature, (2) nonequilibrium dynamics of a quantum fields using mean field theory, and (3) stochastic classical field theoretic models with applications to spinodal decomposition and structural phase transitions in a variety of systems, such as spin chains and shape memory alloys.