Related papers: Two-step nucleation of the Earth's inner core

Nucleation is the onset of a first-order phase transition by which a metastable phase transforms into a more stable one. Such a phase transition occurs when an initial system initially in equilibrium is destabilized by the change of an…

The Earth's core consists of a solid ball with a radius of 1221 Km, surrounded by a liquid shell which extends up to 3480 Km from the centre of the planet, roughly half way towards the surface (the mean radius of the Earth is 6373 km). The…

The improvements of the knowledge of the seismic structure of the inner core and the complexities thereby revealed ask for a dynamical origin. Sub-solidus convection was one of the early suggestions to explain the seismic anisotropy, but it…

Nucleation in systems with a metastable liquid-gas critical point is the prototypical example of a two-step nucleation process, in which the appearance of the critical nucleus is preceded by the formation of a liquid-like density…

Exoplanets with masses similar to that of Earth have recently been discovered in extrasolar systems. A first order question for understanding their dynamics is to know whether they possess Earth like liquid metallic cores. However, the iron…

The nucleation of crystals from the liquid melt is often characterized by a competition between different crystalline structures or polymorphs, and can result in nuclei with heterogeneous compositions. These mixed-phase nuclei can display…

Nucleation phenomena commonly observed in our every day life are of fundamental, technological and societal importance in many areas, but some of their most intimate mechanisms remain however to be unravelled. Crystal nucleation, the early…

Seismic studies indicate that the Earth's inner core has a complex structure and exhibits a strong elastic anisotropy with a cylindrical symmetry. Among the various models which have been proposed to explain this anisotropy, one class of…

Nucleation and growth is the dominant relaxation mechanism driving first order phase transitions. In two-dimensional at systems nucleation has been applied to a wide range of problems in physics, chemistry and biology. Here we study…

The thermodynamics of strongly anisotropic crystalline surfaces is analogous to that of a binary mixture exhibiting phase separation. On a metastable planar surface, formation of stable orientations requires a nucleation process, in which…

Here it is shown how to find the interior structure of a variety of rock-and-iron planetary bodies by using the rock density and some aspects of the core density as known for the Earth and using a convection principle for the iron-rich…

Hydrogen uptake into body-centered cubic (bcc) iron as a root cause for subsequent hydrogen embrittlement, is initiated at the surface. In this paper, we quantify how readily H diffuses from the surface into the bulk. We consider a set of…

The inner structure of the earth is still a topic of discussion. Seismic measurements showed a structure of solid, liquid, solid which describes the mantle, outer core and inner core with the inner core in the center. The analysis of…

The Earth acts as a gigantic heat engine driven by decay of radiogenic isotopes and slow cooling, which gives rise to plate tectonics, volcanoes, and mountain building. Another key product is the geomagnetic field, generated in the liquid…

Understanding the mechanism of nucleation of the stable phase inside the metastable parent phase during a first order phase transition has been a subject of outstanding interest in natural science. The problem becomes even more challenging…

In a first approximation the Earth's interior has an isotropic structure with a spherical symmetry. Over the last decades the geophysical observations have revealed, at different spatial scales, the existence of several perturbations from…

The process of homogeneous crystal nucleation has been considered in a model liquid, where the interparticle interaction is described by a short-range spherical oscillatory potential. Mechanisms of initiating structural ordering in the…

The solid diffusive phase transformation involving the nucleation and growth of one nucleus is universal and frequently employed but has not yet been fully understood at the atomic level. Here, our first-principles calculations reveal a…

Solidification control is crucial in manufacturing technologies, as it determines the microstructure and, consequently, the performance of the final product. Investigating the mechanisms occurring during the early stages of nucleation…

We assess the quantitative accuracy of the particle-in-cell (PIC) approximation used in recent ab initio predictions of the thermodynamic properties of hexagonal-close-packed iron at the conditions of the Earth's inner core. The assessment…