  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 briefly suggest possible applications
incondensed matter systems and early universe cosmology.
