Related papers: Metastable phases and "metastable" phase diagrams
Truly stable metastable states are an artifact of the mean-field approximation or the zero temperature limit. If such appealing concepts in glass theory as configurational entropy are to have a meaning beyond these approximations, one needs…
Phase diagrams are essential tools of the materials scientist, showing which phases are at equilibrium under a set of applied thermodynamic conditions. Essentially all phase diagrams today are two dimensional, typically constructed with…
Realistic equations of state valid in the whole state space of a multi-component mixture should satisfy at least three important constraints: (i) The Gibbs phase rule holds. (ii) At low densities, one can deduce a virial equation of state…
MAB phases (MABs) are atomically-thin laminates of ceramic/metallic-like layers, having made a breakthrough in the development of 2D materials. Though theoretically offering a vast chemical and phase space, relatively few MABs have yet been…
Metadynamics is a commonly used and successful enhanced sampling method. By the introduction of a history dependent bias which depends on a restricted number of collective variables(CVs) it can explore complex free energy surfaces…
Pair potentials that are bounded at the origin provide an accurate description of the effective interaction for many systems of dissolved soft macromolecules (e.g., flexible dendrimers). Using numerical free-energy calculations, we…
In the framework of the theoretical model of the phase transition of binary solutions into spatially inhomogeneous states proposed earlier by the autors [1], which takes into account nonlinear effects, the role of the cubic in concentration…
The paper concerns the construction of a compressible liquid-vapor relaxation model which is able to capture the metastable states of the non isothermal van der Waals model as well as saturation states. Starting from the Gibbs formalism, we…
General conditions for the occurrence of mesoscopic phase fluctuations in condensed matter are considered. The description of different thermodynamic phases, which coexist as a mixture of mesoscopically separated regions, is based on the…
Controlled synthesis of metastable materials away from equilibrium is of interest in materials chemistry. Thin film deposition methods with rapid condensation of vapor precursors can readily synthesize metastable phases, but often struggle…
Metastable nanostructures are kinetically trapped in local energy minima featuring intriguing surface and material properties. To unleash their potential, there is a need for non-equilibrium processes capable of stabilizing a large range of…
Thin polymer films have attracted attention because of both their broad range of applications and of the fundamental questions they raise regarding the dynamic response of confined polymers. These films are unstable if the temperature is…
Hydrogen-rich compounds have been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally in the quest for novel high-temperature superconductors. Reports on sulfur-hydride attaining metallicity under pressure and exhibiting…
Stochastic systems often exhibit multiple viable metastable states that are long-lived. Over very long timescales, fluctuations may push the system to transition between them, drastically changing its macroscopic configuration. In realistic…
We examine dense self-gravitating stellar systems dominated by a central potential, such as nuclear star clusters hosting a central supermassive black hole. Different dynamical properties of these systems evolve on vastly different…
Controlling polymorphism in molecular crystals is crucial in the pharmaceutical, dye, and pesticide industries. However, its theoretical description is extremely challenging, due to the associated long timescales ($ > 1 \, \mu s$). We…
We report here a study of reversible pressure-induced structural transformation between two amorphous forms of SO$_2$: molecular at pressures below 26 GPa and polymeric above this pressure, at temperatures of 77 - 300 K. The transformation…
The effect of polydispersity on the freezing transition of hard spheres is examined within a moment description. At low polydispersities a single fluid-to-crystal transition is recovered. With increasing polydispersity we find a density…
A theoretical analysis [Angelani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 065702 (2006)] predicts glassy behaviour of light in a nonlinear random medium. This implies slow dynamics related to the presence of many metastable states. We consider very…
We present a pedagogical review of the swelling thermodynamics and phase transitions of polymer gels. In particular, we discuss how features of the volume phase transition of the gel's osmotic equilibrium is analogous to other transitions…