Complete universal scaling in first-order phase transitions

Abstract

Phase transitions and critical phenomena are among the most intriguing phenomena in nature and society. They are classified as first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) and continuous ones. While the latter show marvelous phenomena of scaling and universality, whether the former behaves similarly is a long-standing controversial issue. Here we definitely demonstrate complete universal scaling in field driven FOPTs for Langevin equations in both zero and two spatial dimensions by rescaling all parameters and subtracting extra contributions with singular dimensions from an effective temperature and a special field according to an effective theory that possesses a fixed point of a seemingly un-physical imaginary value. This offers a perspective different from the usual nucleation and growth but conforming to continuous phase transitions to study FOPTs.