Related papers: Hexagonal ice density dependence on inter atomic d…
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…
When an ice crystal is born from liquid water two key changes occur: (i) the molecules order; and (ii) the mobility of the molecules drops as they adopt their lattice positions. Most research on ice nucleation (and crystallization in…
It is surprisingly difficult to freeze water. Almost all ice that forms under "mild" conditions (temperatures > -40 degrees Celsius) requires the presence of a nucleating agent - a solid particle that facilitates the freezing process - such…
Our knowledge about the physical processes determining the activity of comets were mainly influenced by several extremely successful space missions, the predictions of theoretical models and the results of laboratory experiments. However,…
Accurate description of deformed atomic nuclei by the orbital-free density functional theory has been a longstanding textbook challenge, due to the difficulty in accounting for the intricate quantum shell effects that are present in such…
The heat capacities of ice and water at ambient pressure are reexamined to build an intrinsic correlation between H2O molecular motions and the heat capacity. Based on the evolution of H2O molecular motions, a satisfactory description of…
Among the many ice polymorphs, ice I, that is present in nature at ambient pressure, occurs with two different structures, i.e. the stable hexagonal (Ih) or the metastable cubic (Ic) one. An accurate analysis of cubic ice Ic was missing…
Several thermodynamic properties of ice Ih, II, and III are studied by a quasi-harmonic approximation and compared to results of quantum path integral and classical simulations. This approximation allows to obtain thermodynamic information…
In this work, we conducted molecular dynamics simulations to study the fracture mechanism of ice crystals in a bulk phase and at ice-ice interfaces at the atomistic scale. We show that there exists a narrow disordered interfacial layer…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we compute the elastic constants of ice I$_h$ for a set of 8 frequently used semi-empirical potentials for water, namely the rigid-molecule SPC/E, TIP4P, TIP4P2005, TIP4P/Ice and TIP5P models, the…
Molecular simulations have provided valuable insight into the microscopic mechanisms underlying homogeneous ice nucleation. While empirical models have been used extensively to study this phenomenon, simulations based on first-principles…
The results of experiments on the formation of molecular hydrogen on low density and high density amorphous ice surfaces are analyzed using a rate equation model. The activation energy barriers for the relevant diffusion and desorption…
Hydrogen bond symmetrisations in H-bonded systems triggered by pressure induced nuclear quantum effects (NQEs) is a long-known concept1 but experimental evidences in high-pressure ices have remained elusive with conventional methods2,3.…
The dependence of fission barriers on the excitation energy of the compound nucleus impacts the survival probability of superheavy nuclei synthesized in heavy-ion fusion reactions. In this work, we investigate the isentropic fission…
One of water's unsolved puzzles is the question of what determines the lowest temperature to which it can be cooled before freezing to ice. The supercooled liquid has been probed experimentally to near the homogeneous nucleation temperature…
What makes a material a good ice nucleating agent? Despite the importance of heterogeneous ice nucleation to a variety of fields, from cloud science to microbiology, major gaps in our understanding of this ubiquitous process still prevent…
Ice Ih, the common form of ice in the biosphere, contains proton disorder. Its proton-ordered counterpart, ice XI, is thermodynamically stable below 72 K. However, even below this temperature the formation of ice XI is kinetically hindered…
Coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations are presented in which the sensitivity of the ice nucleation rate to the hydrophilicity of a graphene nanoflake is investigated. We find that an optimal interaction strength for promoting ice…
The H\"uckel Hamiltonian is an incredibly simple tight-binding model famed for its ability to capture qualitative physics phenomena arising from electron interactions in molecules and materials. Part of its simplicity arises from using only…
The fission process is a fascinating phenomenon in which the atomic nucleus, a compact self-bound mesoscopic system, undergoes a spontaneous or induced quantum transition into two or more fragments. A predictive, accurate and precise…