Physics
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Item Phase Transitions Affected by Molecular Interconversion(2023) Longo, Thomas; Anisimov, Mikhail; Chemical Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Typically, pure substances may be found with only one gaseous or liquid state, while their solid state may exist in various polymorphic states. The existence of two distinct liquid forms in a single component substance is more unusual since liquids lack the long-range order common to crystals. Yet, the existence of multiple amorphous states in a single component substance, a phenomenon known as "liquid polyamorphism," has been observed or predicted in a wide variety of substances. In contrast to standard phase transitions, it has been suggested that polyamorphic liquid-liquid transitions are caused by the interconversion of molecular or supramolecular states. To investigate this phenomenon, a nonequilibrium thermodynamic model was developed to quantitatively describe the interplay between the dynamics of molecular interconversion and fluid-phase separation. The theory has been compared to a variety of interconverting systems, and has demonstrated a quantitative agreement with the results of Monte Carlo and Molecular Dynamics simulations. In this thesis, it is shown that there are two major effects of molecular interconversion on the thermodynamics and the kinetics of fluid-phase separation: if the system evolves to an equilibrium state, then the growth of one of the alternative phases may result in the destruction of phase coexistence - a phenomenon referred to as "phase amplification." It is demonstrated that depending on the experimental or simulation conditions, either phase separation or phase amplification would be observed. Previous studies of polyamorphic substances report conflicting observations of phase formation, which may be explained by the possibility of phase amplification occurring. Alternatively, if the system evolves to a nonequilibrium steady state, the phase domain growth could be restricted at a mesoscopic length scale. This phenomenon (referred to as "microphase separation") is one of the simplest examples of steady-state dissipative structures, and may be applicable to active matter systems, hydrodynamic instabilities, and bifurcations in chemical reactions, in which the nonequilibrium conditions could be imposed by an external flux of matter or energy.Item MANIPULATING AND SIMPLIFYING THE INTERMOLECULAR INTERACTIONS IN LIQUID MIXTURES(2017) Gao, Ang; Weeks, John D; Chemical Physics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Long ranged intermolecular interactions have significant influence on the structure of the liquid and present serious challenges for computer simulations. In particular, the long ranged tail of Coulomb interaction usually needs to be calculated using Ewald summation or related techniques in computer simulation, which can be too time consuming to be carried out for large systems. Local Molecular Field(LMF) theory has been developed to simplify long-ranged Coulomb and Van der Waals interactions for nonuniform liquids by approximating these long ranged interactions as effective static single-particle fields. Despite the success LMF theory made in describing the structure of nonuniform liquids, it is not appropriate to use LMF theory to describe the structure of uniform liquid mixtures, since the dynamically moving unbalanced forces produced in mixture can not be captured by the framework of LMF theory. In this thesis, we propose a new framework which approximates the unbalanced forces produced in a mixture as effective intermolecular interactions. This new framework can simplify the long ranged intermolecular interactions and produce a mimic system with short ranged solvent-solvent interactions, which is much easier to simulate or analyze. Based on this framework and other techniques introduced in this thesis, we have constructed a "Short Solvent Model", which has noticeable advantages compared to the explicit solvent model and implicit solvent model. This framework has also been used to simplify the interactions of phase-separating mixtures. The impact of using this framework on the diffusion dynamics of the solutes has also been discussed. Possible application of this framework and the Short Solvent Model to biopolymers folding problems is briefly discussed.