Crystallization of classical multicomponent plasmas

Journal Article · Mon Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics (Print)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVE.81.036107· OSTI ID:21344717

Medin, Zach; Cumming, Andrew ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, McGill University, 3600 Rue University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T8 (Canada)

We develop a method for calculating the equilibrium properties of the liquid-solid phase transition in a classical, ideal, multicomponent plasma. Our method is a semianalytic calculation that relies on extending the accurate fitting formulas available for the one-, two-, and three-component plasmas to the case of a plasma with an arbitrary number of components. We compare our results to those of C. J. Horowitz et al. [Phys. Rev. E 75, 066101 (2007)], who used a molecular-dynamics simulation to study the chemical properties of a 17-species mixture relevant to the ocean-crust boundary of an accreting neutron star at the point where half the mixture has solidified. Given the same initial composition as Horowitz et al., we are able to reproduce to good accuracy both the liquid and solid compositions at the half-freezing point; we find abundances for most species within 10% of the simulation values. Our method allows the phase diagram of complex mixtures to be explored more thoroughly than possible with numerical simulations. We briefly discuss the implications for the nature of the liquid-solid boundary in accreting neutron stars.

• OSTI ID: 21344717
• Journal Information: Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics (Print), Vol. 81, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.81.036107; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1539-3755
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ABUNDANCE
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CRYSTALLIZATION
LIQUIDS
MELTING POINTS
MIXTURES
MOLECULAR DYNAMICS METHOD
NEUTRON STARS
PHASE DIAGRAMS
PLASMA
SEAS
SOLIDS
CALCULATION METHODS
DIAGRAMS
DISPERSIONS
EVALUATION
FLUIDS
INFORMATION
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
SIMULATION
STARS
SURFACE WATERS
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
TRANSITION TEMPERATURE