A novel method for evaluating the critical nucleus and the surface tension in systems with first order phase transition

Abstract

We introduce a novel method for calculating the size of the critical nucleus and the value of the surface tension in systems with first order phase transition. The method is based on classical nucleation theory, and it consists in studying the thermodynamics of a sphere of given radius embedded in a frozen metastable surrounding. The frozen configuration creates a pinning field on the surface of the free sphere. The pinning field forces the sphere to stay in the metastable phase as long as its size is smaller than the critical nucleus. We test our method in two first-order systems, both on a two-dimensional lattice: a system where the parameter tuning the transition is the magnetic field, and a second system where the tuning parameter is the temperature. In both cases the results are satisfying. Unlike previous techniques, our method does not require an infinite volume limit to compute the surface tension, and it therefore gives reliable estimates even by using relatively small systems. However, our method cannot be used at, or close to, the critical point, i.e. at coexistence, where the critical nucleus becomes infinitely large.

12 pages, 15 figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Thermodynamic signature of growing amorphous order in glass-forming liquids
• Constructing explicit magnetic analogies for the dynamics of glass forming liquids
• Glassy aspects of melting dynamics (On melting dynamics and the glass transition, Part I)
• Static correlations functions and domain walls in glass-forming liquids: the case of a sandwich geometry
• Response to "Comment on Static correlations functions and domain walls in glass-forming liquids: The case of a sandwich geometry" [J. Chem. Phys. 144, 227101 (2016)]