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Negating Negative Heat Capacity in Nanoclusters

Karo Michaelian·Ivan Santamaria-Holek
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Abstract

It is shown that negative heat capacity in nanoclusters is an artifact of applying equilibrium thermodynamic formalism on a small system trapped out of equilibrium in a particular structural motif representing only part of the energetically available phase space volume. Trapping may occur in either the canonical or microcanonical ensemble, but it is unavoidable in the microcanonical. A more general consequence of trapping is that all macroscopic quantities determined for nanoclusters will depend on the initial conditions.

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Karo Michaelian, Ivan Santamaria-Holek. 2007-01-16. Negating Negative Heat Capacity in Nanoclusters. https://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0701357

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