Related papers: Looped liquid-liquid coexistence in protein crysta…
A recent experiment [K. H. Kim, et al., Science 370, 978 (2020)] showed that it may be possible to detect a liquid-liquid phase transition (LLPT) in supercooled water by subjecting high density amorphous ice (HDA) to ultrafast heating,…
Liquid crystals are phases of matter intermediate between crystals and liquids. Whereas classical liquid crystals have been known for a long time and are used in electro-optical displays, much less is known about their quantum counterparts.…
Membraneless droplets or liquid condensates formed via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) play a pivotal role in cell biology and hold potential for biomedical engineering. While membraneless droplets are often studied in the context of…
We performed dynamic simulations of spheres with short-range attractive interactions for many values of interaction strength and range. Fast crystallization occurs in a localized region of this parameter space, but the character of…
Many-body interactions can play a relevant role in water properties. Here we study by Monte Carlo simulations a coarse-grained model for bulk water that includes many-body interactions associated to water cooperativity. The model is…
A physical scenario accounting for the existence of size-limited submicrometric domains in cell membranes is proposed. It is based on the numerical investigation of the counterpart, in lipidic membranes where proteins are diffusing, of the…
By means of a minimal physical model, we investigate the interplay of two phase transitions at play in chromatin organization: (1) liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) within the fluid solvating chromatin, resulting in the formation of…
We present a high-resolution computer simulation study of the equation of state of ST2 water, evaluating the liquid-state properties at 2718 state points, and precisely locating the liquid-liquid critical point (LLCP) occurring in this…
Phase separation is as familiar as watching vinegar separating from oil in vinegrette. The observation that phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids is widespread in living cells has opened an entire field of research into the…
Liquid water is not only of obvious importance but also extremely intriguing, displaying many anomalies that still challenge our understanding of such an a priori simple system. The same is true when looking at nanoconfined water: The…
We present a computer simulation study of a (6,12)-Lennard-Jones fluid confined to a slit pore, formed by two uniform planes. These interact via (3,9)-Lennard-Jones potential with the fluid particles. When the fluid approaches the…
Temperature-driven polyamorphism has been reported in various supercooled liquids and glasses. The dynamical and structural routes followed by the system during such crossovers are however not universal and appear to be related to intrinsic…
Phase transitions of systems confined in long cylindrical pores (capillary condensation, wetting, crystallization, etc.) are intrinsically not sharply defined but rounded. The finite size of the cross section causes destruction of long…
The present work is aimed at investigating the behavior of Morse fluids in the immediate vicinity of the critical point within the framework of a cell model. This region is of both fundamental and practical importance, yet presents…
Understanding the (de)mixing behavior of multicomponent lipid bilayers is an important step towards unraveling the nature of spatial composition heterogeneities in cellular membranes and their role in biological function. We use…
The equilibrium phase diagram of a 1:1 symmetrical mixture composed of oppositely charged colloids is calculated using Monte Carlo simulations. We model the system by the DLVO effective interaction potential. The phase diagram is similar to…
Biomolecular condensates such as membraneless organelles, underpinned by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), are important for physiological function, with electrostatics -- among other interaction types -- being a prominent force in…
Particle size polydispersity can help to inhibit crystallization of the hard-sphere fluid into close-packed structures at high packing fractions and thus is often employed to create model glass-forming systems. Nonetheless, it is known that…
Active matter is not only indispensable to our understanding of diverse biological processes, but also provides a fertile ground for discovering novel physics. Many emergent properties impossible for equilibrium systems have been…
The striking anomalies in physical properties of supercooled water that were discovered in the 1960-70s, remain incompletely understood and so provide both a source of controversy amongst theoreticians, and a stimulus to experimentalists…