Related papers: Europa's Surface Water-ice Crystallinity and Corre…
Water exhibits rich polymorphism, where more than 20 crystalline phases have been experimentally reported. Five of them are metastable and form at low temperatures by either heating amorphous ice or degassing clathrate hydrates. However,…
It has been conjectured that roughness plays a role in surface nucleation, the tendency for freezing to begin preferentially at the liquid-gas interface. Using high speed imaging, we sought evidence for freezing at the contact line on…
Context. The level of porosity of interstellar ices - largely comprised of amorphous solid water (ASW) - contains clues on the trapping capacity of other volatile species and determines the surface accessibility that is needed for solid…
Most ice in nature forms thanks to impurities which boost the exceedingly low nucleation rate of pure supercooled water. However, the microscopic details of ice nucleation on these substances remain largely unknown. Here, we have unraveled…
The habitability of Enceladus' subsurface ocean and the detectability of potential biosignatures depend on efficient ocean circulation and suitable ocean conditions. Directly probing the ocean is challenging because it lies beneath a thick…
We report on the shape dynamics of ice suspended in cold fresh water and subject to the natural convective flows generated during melting. Experiments reveal shape motifs for increasing far-field temperature: Sharp pinnacles directed…
To comprehend the complexities of the ice-water interface, we perform a study that attempts to correlate the altered dynamics of water to its perturbed structure at, and due to, the interface. The deviation from bulk values of structural…
The ion distribution of electrolytes near interfaces with dielectric contrast has important consequences for electrochemical processes and many other applications. To date, most studies of such systems have focused on geometrically simple…
Structural and thermodynamic properties of high-density amorphous (HDA) ice have been studied by path-integral molecular dynamics simulations in the isothermal-isobaric ensemble. Interatomic interactions were modeled by using the effective…
Enceladus is believed to have a saltwater global ocean with a mean depth of at least 30~km, heated from below at the ocean-core interface and cooled at the top, where the ocean loses heat to the icy lithosphere above. This scenario suggests…
Initially, the acoustic field forced the droplets into an oblate spheroid shape, though the counteracting force of the cooling stream caused them to circularize. Droplet geometry was thus the net result of streaming forces and surface…
Organic molecules such as steroids or amino acids form crystals that can facilitate the formation of ice -- arguably the most important phase transition on earth. However, the origin of the ice nucleating ability of organic crystals is…
The close environment of the central supermassive black hole of our Galaxy is studied thoroughly since decades in order to shed light on the behavior of the central regions of galaxies in general and of active galaxies in particular. The…
We characterized the structural and dynamical properties of the quasi-liquid layer (QLL) at the surface of ice by molecular dynamics simulations with a thermodynamically consistent water model. Our simulations show that for three low-index…
The formation of ice affects many aspects of our everyday life as well as technologies such as cryotherapy and cryopreservation. Foreign substances almost always aid water freezing through heterogeneous ice nucleation, but the molecular…
A link between exposures of water (H${}_{2}$O) ice with traces of an ammoniated compound (e.g., a salt) and the probable effusion of a water-rich cryolava onto the surface of Pluto has been established in previous investigations (Dalle Ore…
We derive a phase diagram for amorphous solids and liquid supercooled water and explain why the amorphous solids of water exist in several different forms. Application of large-deviation theory allows us to prepare such phases in computer…
We examine ice crystal growth from water vapor at temperatures near the melting point, when surface premelting creates a quasiliquid layer at the solid/vapor interface. Recent ice growth measurements as a function of vapor supersaturation…
We use molecular dynamics computer simulations to study the equilibrium properties of the surface of amorphous silica. Two types of geometries are investigated: i) clusters with different diameters (13.5\AA, 19\AA, and 26.5\AA) and ii) a…
Numerous geological features that could be evaporitic in origin have been identified on the surface of Titan. Although they seem to be water-ice poor, their main properties -chemical composition, thickness, stratification- are essentially…