Chaotic nucleation of metastable domains

We describe a cavitation process that consists of chaotic nucleation of metastable domains. It can be generically observed in spatially extended nonequilibrium systems, whenever they exhibit bistability between a stationary and an oscillatory state, close to the Andronov homoclinic bifurcation, which leads to the disappearance df the former. In the bistable regime, the modulational instability of the homogenenous oscillations leads to inhomogenous nucleation of the stationary phase.