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Marcia C. Barbosa

Publications and source records attributed to Marcia C. Barbosa.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Diffusion Enhancement in Core-softened fluid confined in nanotubes

We study the effect of confinement in the dynamical behavior of a core-softened fluid. The fluid is modeled as a two length scales potential. This potential in the bulk reproduces the anomalous behavior observed in the density and in the diffusion of liquid water. A series of $NpT$ Molecular Dynamics simulations for this two length scales fluid confined in a nanotube were performed. We obtain that the diffusion coefficient increases with the increase of the nanotube radius for wide channels as expected for normal fluids. However, for narrow channels, the confinement shows an enhancement in the diffusion coefficient when the nanotube radius decreases. This behavior, observed for water, is explained in the framework of the two length scales potential.

cond-mat.soft↗

Hydration and anomalous solubility of the Bell-Lavis model as solvent

We address the investigation of the solvation properties of the minimal orientational model for water, originally proposed by Bell and Lavis. The model presents two liquid phases separated by a critical line. The difference between the two phases is the presence of structure in the liquid of lower density, described through orientational order of particles. We have considered the effect of small inert solute on the solvent thermodynamic phases. Solute stabilizes the structure of solvent, by the organization of solvent particles around solute particles, at low temperatures. Thus, even at very high densities, the solution presents clusters of structured water particles surrounding solute inert particles, in a region in which pure solvent would be free of structure. Solute intercalates with solvent, a feature which has been suggested by experimental and atomistic simulation data. Examination of solute solubility has yielded a minimum in that property, which may be associated with the minimum found for noble gases. We have obtained a line of minimum solubility (TmS) across the phase diagram, accompanying the line of maximum in density (TMD). This coincidence is easily explained for non-interacting solute and it is in agreement with earlier results in the literature. We give a simple argument which suggests that interacting solute would dislocate TmS to higher temperatures.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Connection Between Minimum of Solubility and Temperature of Maximum Density in an Associating Lattice Gas Model

In this paper we investigate the solubility of a hard - sphere gas in a solvent modeled as an associating lattice gas (ALG). The solution phase diagram for solute at 5% is compared with the phase diagram of the original solute free model. Model properties are investigated thr ough Monte Carlo simulations and a cluster approximation. The model solubility is computed via simulations and shown to exhibit a minimum as a function of temperature. The line of minimum solubility (TmS) coincides with the line of maximum density (TMD) for different solvent chemical potentials.

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Ion fluxes through nano-pores and transmembrane channels

We introduce an implicit solvent Molecular Dynamics approach for calculating ionic fluxes through narrow nano-pores and transmembrane channels. The method relies on a dual-control- volume grand-canonical molecular dynamics (DCV-GCMD) simulation and the analytical solution for the electrostatic potential inside a cylindrical nano-pore recently obtained by Levin [Europhys. Lett., 76, 163 (2006)]. The theory is used to calculate the ionic fluxes through an artificial trans-membrane c hannel which mimics the antibacterial gramicidin A channel. Both current-voltage and current-concentration relations are calculated under various experimental conditions. We show that our results are comparable to the characteristics associated to the gramicidin A pore, specially the existence of two binding sites inside the pore and the observed saturation in the current-concentration profiles.

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Thermodynamic, Dynamic, Structural and Excess Entropy Anomalies for core-softened potentials

Using molecular dynamic simulations we study three families of continuous core-softened potentials consisting of two length scales: a shoulder scale and an attractive scale. All the families have the same slope between the two length scales but exhibit different potential energy gap between them. For each family three shoulder depths are analyzed. We show that all these systems exhibit a liquid-liquid phase transition between a high density liquid phase and a low density liquid phase ending at a critical point. The critical temperature is the same for all cases suggesting that the critical temperature is only dependent on the slope between the two scales. The critical pressure decreases with the decrease of the potential energy gap between the two scales suggesting that the pressure is responsible for forming the high density liquid. We also show, using the radial distribution function and the excess entropy analysis, that the density, the diffusion and the structural anomalies are present if particles move from the attractive scale to the shoulder scale with the increase of the temperature indicating that the anomalous behavior depends only in what happens up to the second coordination shell.

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Core-softened Fluids, Water-like Anomalies and the Liquid-Liquid Critical Points

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to examine the relationship between water-like anomalies and the liquid-liquid critical point in a family of model fluids with multi-Gaussian, core-softened pair interactions. The core-softened pair interactions have two length scales, such that the longer length scale associated with a shallow, attractive well is kept constant while the shorter length scale associated with the repulsive shoulder is varied from an inflexion point to a minimum of progressively increasing depth. As the shoulder well depth increases, the pressure required to form the high density liquid decreases and the temperature up to which the high-density liquid is stable increases, resulting in the shift of the liquid-liquid critical point to much lower pressures and higher temperatures. The pair correlation entropy is computed to show that the excess entropy anomaly diminishes when the shoulder well depth increases. Excess entropy scaling of diffusivity in this class of fluids is demonstrated, showing that decreasing strength of the excess entropy anomaly with increasing shoulder depth results in the progressive loss of water-like thermodynamic, structural and transport anomalies. Instantaneous normal mode analysis was used to index the overall curvature distribution of the fluid and the fraction of imaginary frequency modes was shown to correlate well with the anomalous behaviour of the diffusivity and the pair correlation entropy. The results suggest in the case of core-softened potentials, in addition to the presence of two length scales, energetic and entropic effects associated with local minima and curvatures of the pair interaction play an important role in determining the presence of water-like anomalies and the liquid-liquid phase transition.

cond-mat.soft↗

Diffusion anomaly and dynamic transitions in the Bell-Lavis water model

In this paper we investigate the dynamic properties of the minimal Bell-Lavis (BL) water model and their relation to the thermodynamic anomalies. The Bell-Lavis model is defined on a triangular lattice in which water molecules are represented by particles with three symmetric bonding arms interacting through van der Waals and hydrogen bonds. We have studied the model diffusivity in different regions of the phase diagram through Monte Carlo simulations. Our results show that the model displays a region of anomalous diffusion which lies inside the region of anomalous density, englobed by the line of temperatures of maximum density (TMD). Further, we have found that the diffusivity undergoes a dynamic transition which may be classified as fragile-to-strong transition at the critical line only at low pressures. At higher densities, no dynamic transition is seen on crossing the critical line. Thus evidence from this study is that relation of dynamic transitions to criticality may be discarded.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Effects of attractive interactions in the thermodynamic, dynamic and structural anomalies of a two length scale potential

Using molecular dynamic simulations we study a system of particles interacting through a continuous core-softened potentials consisting of a hard core, a shoulder at closest distances and an attractive well at further distance. We obtain the pressure-temperature phase diagram of of this system for various depths of the tunable attractive well. Since this is a two length scales potential, density, diffusion and structural anomalies are expected. We show that the effect of increasing the attractive interaction between the molecules is to shrink the region in pressure in which the density and the diffusion anomalies are present. If the attractive forces are too strong, particle will be predominantly in one of the two length scales and no density of diffusion anomaly is observed. The structural anomalous region is present for all the cases.

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Entropy, diffusivity and the energy landscape of a water-like fluid

Molecular dynamics simulations and instantaneous normal mode (INM) analysis of a fluid with core-softened pair interactions and water-like liquid-state anomalies are performed to obtain an understanding of the relationship between thermodynamics, transport properties and the poten- tial energy landscape. Rosenfeld-scaling of diffusivities with the thermodynamic excess and pair correlation entropy is demonstrated for this model. The INM spectra are shown to carry infor- mation about the dynamical consequences of the interplay between length scales characteristic of anomalous fluids, such as bimodality of the real and imaginary branches of the frequency distribu- tion. The INM spectral information is used to partition the liquid entropy into two contributions associated with the real and imaginary frequency modes; only the entropy contribution from the imaginary branch captures the non-monotonic behaviour of the excess entropy and diffusivity in the anomalous regime of the fluid.

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Liquid crystal phase and waterlike anomalies in a core-softened shoulder-dumbbells system

Using molecular dynamics we investigate the thermodynamics, dynamics and structure of 250 diatomic molecules interacting by a core-softened potential. This system exhibits thermodynamics, dynamics and structural anomalies: a maximum in density-temperature plane at constante pressure and maximum and minimum points in the diffusivity and translational order parameter against density at constant temperature. Starting with very dense systems and decreasing density the mobility at low temperatures first increases, reach a maximum, then decreases, reach a minimum and finally increases. In the pressure-temperature phase diagram the line of maximum translational order parameter is located outside the line of diffusivity extrema that is enclosing the temperature of maximum density line. We compare our results with the monomeric system showing that the anisotropy due to the dumbbell leads to a much larger solid phase and to the appearance of a liquid crystal phase. the double ranged thermodynamic and dynamic anomalies.

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Liquid polymorphism, order-disorder transitions and anomalous behavior: a Monte Carlo study of the Bell-Lavis model for water

The Bell-Lavis model for liquid water is investigated through numerical simulations. The lattice-gas model on a triangular lattice presents orientational states and is known to present a highly bonded low density phase and a loosely bonded high density phase. We show that the model liquid-liquid transition is continuous, in contradiction with mean-field results on the Husimi cactus and from the cluster variational method. We define an order parameter which allows interpretation of the transition as an order-disorder transition of the bond-network. Our results indicate that the order-disorder transition is in the Ising universality class. Previous proposal of an Ehrenfest second order transition is discarded. A detailed investigation of anomalous properties has also been undertaken. The line of density maxima in the HDL phase is stabilized by fluctuations, absent in the mean-field solution.

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Thermodynamic, Dynamic and Structural Anomalies for Shoulder-like potentials

Using molecular dynamic simulations we study a family of continuous core-softened potentials consisting of a hard core, a shoulder at closest distances and an attractive well at further distance. The repulsive shoulder and the well distances represent two length scales. We show that if the first scale, the shoulder, is repulsive or has a small well, the potential has a region in the pressure-temperature phase diagram with density, diffusion and structural anomalies. However, if the closest scale becomes a deep attractive well the regions in the pressure-temperature phase diagram where the three anomalies are present shrink and disappear. This result enables us to predict by the shape of the core-softened potential if anomalies would or would not be present.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Dynamic Transitions in a Two Dimensional Associating Lattice Gas Model

Using Monte Carlo simulations we investigate some new aspects of the phase diagram and the behavior of the diffusion coefficient in an associating lattice gas (ALG) model on different regions of the phase diagram. The ALG model combines a two dimensional lattice gas where particles interact through a soft core potential and orientational degrees of freedom. The competition between soft core potential and directional attractive forces results in a high density liquid phase, a low density liquid phase, and a gas phase. Besides anomalies in the behavior of the density with the temperature at constant pressure and of the diffusion coefficient with density at constant temperature are also found. The two liquid phases are separated by a coexistence line that ends in a bicritical point. The low density liquid phase is separated from the gas phase by a coexistence line that ends in tricritical point. The bicritical and tricritical points are linked by a critical $λ$-line. The high density liquid phase and the fluid phases are separated by a second $τ$ critical line. We then investigate how the diffusion coefficient behaves on different regions of the chemical potential-temperature phase diagram. We find that diffusivity undergoes two types of dynamic transitions: a fragile-to-strong trans ition when the critical $λ$-line is crossed by decreasing the temperature at a constant chemical potential; and a strong-to-strong transition when the $τ$-critical line is crossed by decreasing the temperature at a constant chemical potential.

cond-mat.soft↗

An ubiquitous mechanism for waterlike anomalies

Using collision driven molecular dynamics a system of spherical particles interacting through an effective two length scales potential is studied. The potential can be tuned by means of a single parameter, $λ$, from a ramp $(λ=0.5)$ to a square-shoulder potential $(λ=1.0)$ representing a family of two length scales potential in which the shortest interaction distance has higher potential energy than the largest interaction distance. For all the potentials, ranging between the ramp and the square-shoulder, density and structural anomalies were found, while the diffusion anomaly is found in all but in the square-shoulder potential. The presence anomalies in square-shoulder potential, not observed in previous simulations, confirm the assumption that the two length scales potential is an ubiquitous ingredient for a system to exhibit water-like anomalies

cond-mat.soft↗

Water-like hierarchy of anomalies in a continuous spherical shouldered potential

We investigate by molecular dynamics simulations a continuous isotropic core-softened potential with attractive well in three dimensions, introduced by Franzese [cond-mat/0703681, to appear on Journal of Molecular Liquids], that displays liquid-liquid coexistence with a critical point and water-like density anomaly. Here we find diffusion and structural anomalies. These anomalies occur with the same hierarchy that characterizes water. Yet our analysis shows differences with respect to the water case. Therefore, many of the anomalous features of water could be present in isotropic systems with soft-core attractive potentials, such as colloids or liquid metals, consistent with recent experiments showing polyamorphism in metallic glasses.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Amphiphile Adsorption on Rigid Polyelectrolytes

A theory is presented which quantitatively accounts for the cooperative adsorption of cationic surfactants to anionic polyelectrolytes. For high salt concentration we find that the critical adsorption concentration (CAC) is a bilinear function of the polyion monomer and salt concentrations, with the coefficients dependent only on the type of surfactant used. The results presented in the paper might be useful for designing more efficient gene delivery systems.

cond-mat.soft↗

Which mechanism underlies the water-like anomalies in core-softened potentials?

Using molecular dynamics simulations we investigate the thermodynamic of particles interacting with a continuous and a discrete versions of a core-softened (CS) intermolecular potential composed by a repulsive shoulder. Dynamic and structural properties are also analyzed by the simulations. We show that in the continuous version of the CS potential the density at constant pressure has a maximum for a certain temperature. Similarly the diffusion constant, $D$, at a constant temperature has a maximum at a density $ρ_{\mathrm{max}}$ and a minimum at a density $ρ_{\mathrm{min}}<ρ_{\mathrm{max}}$, and structural properties are also anomalous. For the discrete CS potential none of these anomalies are observed. The absence of anomalies in the discrete case and its presence in the continuous CS potential are discussed in the framework of the excess entropy.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

Interplay between structure and density anomaly for an isotropic core-softened ramp-like potential

Using molecular dynamics simulations and integral equations we investigate the structure, the thermodynamics and the dynamics of a system of particles interacting through a continuous core- softened ramp-like interparticle potential. We found density, dynamic and structural anomalies similar to that found in water. Analysis of the radial distribution function for several temperatures at fixed densities show a pattern that may be related to the origin of density anomaly.

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