Bubble dynamics and the quark-hadron phase transition in nuclear collisions

Abstract: We study the nucleation of a quark gluon plasma (QGP) phase in a hadron gas at low temperatures and high baryon densities. This kind of process will presumably happen very often in nuclear collisions at FAIR and NICA. When the appropriate energy densities (or baryon densities) and temperatures are reached the conversion of one phase into another is not instantaneous. It is a complex process, which involves the nucleation of bubbles of the new phase. One important element of this transition process is the rate of growth of a QGP bubble. In order to estimate it we solve the Relativistic Rayleigh$-$Plesset equation which governs the dynamics of a relativistic spherical bubble in a strongly interacting medium. The baryon rich hadron gas is represented by the nonlinear Walecka model and the QGP is described by the MIT bag model and also by a mean field model of QCD.