Numerical simulation of Coulombic freezing

Conference · Sat Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:5732217

DeWitt, H E ^[1]; Slattery, W L ^[2]; Yang, Juxing ^[3]

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
2. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
3. City Coll. of New York, NY (United States). Levich Inst.

The fluid to crystalline solid first order phase transition of the classical one component plasma (OCP) has been studied by Monte Carlo simulation in three dimensions for temperatures below the thermodynamic freezing temperature ({Gamma} = {Zeta}{sup 2}e{sup 2}/ak{Tau} = 180, a = Wigner-Zeitz radius). With N = 686 we found freezing from a metastable supercooled fluid into microcrystals for values of {Gamma} ranging from 250 to 700. In one case, {Gamma} = 500, the system froze into a perfect bcc lattice from a random start. With more particles the system froze into two or more crystals one bcc and one fcc and smaller examples of hcp. The lattice planes were examined and various kinds of crystal defects could be observed. We developed a program for determining the local environment of each particle as bcc, fcc, hcp, or fluid in order to identify microcrystals in the system at any stage of the freezing process. Generally freezing proceeds rapidly when any single microcrystal attains a sufficient size or roughly 60 to 70 particles. The observations of freezing seem to agree with classical nucleation theory. No separate glass phase (monocrystalline) was seen.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48; W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 5732217
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC-109726; CONF-9111198--1; ON: DE92009458
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661300 -- Other Aspects of Physical Science-- (1992-)
665000* -- Physics of Condensed Matter-- (1992-)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CRYSTALS
DWARF STARS
FREEZING
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PLASMA
SIMULATION
STARS
WHITE DWARF STARS