"Latent heat" of first-order varying pressure transitions

Abstract

We consider the energy release associated with first-order transition by Gibbs construction and present such energy release as an accumulation of a series of tiny binding energy differences between over-compressed states and stable ones. Universal formulae for the energy release from one homogeneous phase to the other is given. We find the energy release per converted particle varies with number density. As an example, the deconfinement phase transition at supranuclear densities is discussed in detail. The mean energy release per converted baryon is of order 0.1MeV in RMF theory and MIT bag descriptions for hadronic matter and strange quark matter for a wider parameter region.