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 into first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) and continuous ones. While the latter shows 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 nonuniversal contributions with singular dimensions from an effective temperature and a special field according to an effective theory. This offers a perspective different from the usual nucleation and growth but conforming to continuous phase transitions to study FOPTs.