Liquid-Liquid Phase Transitions at the Origins of Life?

Phase transitions in liquid crystals

Interpenetration as a mechanism for liquid-liquid phase transitions.

We study simple lattice systems to demonstrate the influence of interpenetrating bond networks on phase behavior. We promote interpenetration by using a Hamiltonian with a weakly repulsive interaction with nearest neighbors and an attractive interaction with second-nearest neighbors. In this way, bond networks will form between second-nearest neighbors, allowing for two (locally) distinct netwo...

Liquid-liquid phase transitions for soft-core attractive potentials.

Using event-driven molecular dynamics simulations, we study a three-dimensional one-component system of spherical particles interacting via a discontinuous potential combining a repulsive square soft core and an attractive square well. In the case of a narrow attractive well, it has been shown that this potential has two metastable gas-liquid critical points. Here we systematically investigate ...

Fermi-Liquid Instabilities at Magnetic Quantum Phase Transitions

This review discusses instabilities of the Fermi-liquid state of conduction electrons in metals with particular emphasis on magnetic quantum critical points. Both the existing theoretical concepts and experimental data on selected materials are presented; with the aim of assessing the validity of presently available theory. After briefly recalling the fundamentals of Fermi-liquid theory, the lo...

Liquid Nanostructures: Phase Transitions, Forces and Friction

Grand canonical Monte Carlo calculations and molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate binary mixtures confined between chemically patterned surfaces. For certain patterns and surface separations, a surfaceinduced phase consisting of liquid “bridges” joining like-patterned regions of the plates is observed. Furthermore, since these bridges involve liquid-liquid interfaces their sha...