The nucleation of vapor bubbles within a superheated fluid is studied using
density functional theory. The nudged elastic band technique is used to find
the minimum energy pathway from the metastable uniform liquid to the stable
uniform gas thus emphasizing the analogy between the the nucleation problem and
that of chemical reactions. The result is both an accurate determination of the
critical nucleus and an unbiased description of the density profile at various
points along the path between the free energy extrema. This calculation is
compared to two other methods: the use of parametrized profiles and constrained
minimization of the free energy. The results indicate that the recent claim,
based on the constraint method, that bubble nucleation and growth involves an
activated instability is incorrect.Comment: To appear in Europhysics Letter