For the Landau free energy , positive gives a continuous phase transition at . For negative , phase coexistence between the disordered global minimum and the ordered global minima occurs on , with . Indeed, on that locus the polynomial is , so these three zeros are global minima. For , the disordered and ordered spinodal points are respectively and ; equality of stationary free energies determines phase coexistence, while loss of a local minimum determines a spinodal point.

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