We investigate the emergence of time-dependent nonperturbative configurations during the evolution of nonlinear scalar field models with symmetric and asymmetric double-well potentials. Complex spatio-temporal behavior emerges as the system seeks to establish equipartition after a fast quench. We show that fast quenches may dramatically modify the decay rate of metastable states in first order phase transitions. We discuss possible applications in condensed matter systems and in inflationary cosmology.
Phase transitions; Solitons; Symmetry breaking; Nucleation
