Classical theory of homogeneous nucleation in superheated liquids and its experimental verification

This work summarizes the cycle of investigations devoted to determination of the character of superheated liquid boiling-up in a glass capillary at the boundary of the attainable superheating. The brief history of studies is followed by a brief introduction into the theory of homogeneous nucleation. The result of the targeted experiments determining stationarity of a random process of a supercritical embryo generation is considered. From the experiments it may be concluded that the process is unsteady. Based on a large selection of life spans of superheated liquids, the authors have made parametric and nonparametric evaluations of the functions of distribution and dependence of boiling-up frequency on time. The comparison of the obtained results with exponential distribution shows significant differences that also prove the nonstationarity of the studied random process. Special experiments and calculations for evaluation of homogeneity of the superheated liquid boilingup at the boundary of attainable superheating are considered. It is shown that in the experiments with glass capillary, the boiling-up occurs on the wall. As the most convincing evidence of heterogeneity of the superheated liquid boiling-up in a glass capillary the authors provide the results of high-speed video filming in a silylated and clean capillaries.