We focus on the Gibbs free energy ΔG for nucleating a droplet of the stable phase (e.g., solid) inside the metastable parent phase (e.g., liquid), close to the first-order transition temperature. This quantity is central to the theory of homogeneous nucleation, since it superintends the nucleation rate. We recently introduced a field theory describing the dependence of ΔG on the droplet volume ...

A ghost interface simulation technique is developed and applied to supersaturated Lennard-Jones liquid-vapor interfaces. It is shown that the surface tension decreases approximately linearly with the supersaturation ratio and that it vanishes at the spinodal. The effect leads to a curvature-dependent surface tension since, it is argued, the local supersaturation of the vapor above a droplet is ...

We investigate the adsorption dynamics of colloidal particles to a liquid/liquid interface. Such an analysis is important in the formation of Pickering emulsions. Using a free energy formulation that has been used for adsorption of surfactants, we obtain the time evolution of the surface coverage and dynamic surface tension. We estimate the characteristic time for adsorption, and show that it c...

We consider a gradient interface model on the lattice with interaction potential which is a non-convex perturbation of a convex potential. We show using a one-step multiple scale analysis the strict convexity of the surface tension at high temperature. This is an extension of Funaki and Spohn’s result [10], where the strict convexity of potential was crucial in their proof. AMS 2000 Subject Cla...

We review models for the nucleation of magnetisation reversal, i.e. the formation of a region of reversed magnetisation in an initially magnetically saturated system. For small particles models for collective reversal, either uniform (Stoner-Wohlfarth model) or non-uniform like curling give good agreement between theory and experiment. For microscopic objects and thin films, we consider two mod...

We consider a gradient interface model on the lattice with interaction potential which is a non-convex perturbation of a convex potential. We show using a one-step multiple scale analysis the strict convexity of the surface tension at high temperature. This is an extension of Funaki and Spohn’s result [10], where the strict convexity of potential was crucial in their proof. AMS 2000 Subject Cla...

We investigate the liquid-vapor interface of the restricted primitive model for an ionic fluid using a density functional approach. The applied theory includes the electrostatic contribution to the free energy functional arising from the bulk energy equation of state and the mean spherical approximation for a restricted primitive model, as well as the associative contribution, due to the format...

By using the brick wall method we calculate the free energy and the entropy of the scalar field in the rotating black holes. As one approaches the stationary limit surface rather than the event horizon in comoving frame, those become divergent. Only when the field is comoving with the black hole (i.e. Ω0 = ΩH) those become divergent at the event horizon. In the Hartle-Hawking state the leading ...

The atomic structure and charge redistribution of different terminations of BaZrO3 011 surfaces have been studied using density functional simulations. We found that the O-terminated 011 flat surface had the smallest cleavage energy among 011 surfaces, but this value was still twice as large as for the formation of a pair of complimentary 001 surfaces. The density functional calculations allowe...

The surface tension at the free surface of a nematic liquid crystal is computed using the Fowler-Kirkwood-Buff approximation to the interface, and a mean field approximation to the molecular pair distribution function. It is found for a Van der Waals interaction between molecules that : a) the molecules always prefer an orientation in the plane of the surface; b) there is a gap at the nematic-i...