Nucleation statistical fluctuation theory

In theory it is possible to nucleate bubbles either in the bulk phase or at solid surfaces as a result of statistical density fluctuations. In practice, the theoretical and measured fracture pressures of pure liquids are far in excess of those corresponding to the superheats or supersaturations for vapor or gas bubble nucleation experimentally observed in engineering systems (F2, F7, Kl). On the other hand, conditions for homogeneous nucleation become favorable at extremely high superheats in the presence of ionizing radiation (G4, G5). The latter observation led to the introduction of the liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber. A simple explanation of this phenomenon is that the... 

Measurement of the electrochemical current noise has the aim of correlating the observed current fluctuations with breakdown and repair events that might lead to the formation of stably growing pits [34,35]. In the view of these theories, the application of statistical methods to the occurrence of current spikes and the observed probability of pit formation lead to a stochastic model for pit nucleation. The evaluation of current spikes in the time and liequency domains yields parameters such as the intensity of the stochastic process A, and the repassivation rate x [34], They depend on parameters such as the potential, state of the passive layer, and concentration of aggressive anions. 

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