Theoretical description of the nucleation of vapor bubbles in a superheated fluid

Abstract

The nucleation of vapor bubbles within a superheated fluid is studied using density functional theory. The nudged elastic band technique is used to find the minimum energy pathway from the metastable uniform liquid to the stable uniform gas thus emphasizing the analogy between the the nucleation problem and that of chemical reactions. The result is both an accurate determination of the critical nucleus and an unbiased description of the density profile at various points along the path between the free energy extrema. This calculation is compared to two other methods: the use of parametrized profiles and constrained minimization of the free energy. The results indicate that the recent claim, based on the constraint method, that bubble nucleation and growth involves an activated instability is incorrect.

To appear in Europhysics Letters

References in corpus (1)

• Density Functional Theory of Inhomogeneous Liquids: II. A Fundamental Measure Approach

Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Density Functional Theory of Inhomogeneous Liquids IV. Squared-gradient approximation and Classical Nucleation Theory
• A Two-parameter Extension of Classical Nucleation Theory
• Nucleation of colloids and macromolecules in a finite volume
• Nudged Elastic Band calculation of the binding potential for liquids at interfaces
• Nonclassical Nucleation Pathways in Liquid Condensation Revealed by Simulation and Theory
• The seeding method: A test case for classical nucleation theory in small systems