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Register a new userHydrogen bond correlated percolation in a supercooled water monolayer as a hallmark of the critical region
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Numerical simulations for a number of water models have supported the possibility of a metastable liquid-liquid critical point (LLCP) in the deep super-cooled region. Here we consider a theoretical model for a supercooled liquid water monolayer and its mathematical mapping onto a percolation problem. The mapping allows us to identify the finite-size clusters at any state-point, and the infinite cluster at the critical point, with the regions of correlated hydrogen bonds (HBs). We show that the percolation line coincides with the first-order liquid-liquid phase transition ending at the LLCP. At pressures below the LLCP, the percolation line corresponds to the strong maxima of the thermodynamic response functions and to the locus of maximum correlation length (Widom line). At higher pressures, we find a percolation transition with a positive slope and we discuss its possible relation with the thermodynamics.
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Four scenarios have been proposed for the low--temperature phase behavior of liquid water, each predicting different thermodynamics. The physical mechanism which leads to each is debated. Moreover, it is still unclear which of the scenarios best describes water, as there is no definitive experimental test. Here we address both open issues within the framework of a microscopic cell model by performing a study combining mean field calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. We show that a common physical mechanism underlies each of the four scenarios, and that two key physical quantities determine which of the four scenarios describes water: (i) the strength of the directional component of the hydrogen bond and (ii) the strength of the cooperative component of the hydrogen bond. The four scenarios may be mapped in the space of these two quantities. We argue that our conclusions are model-independent. Using estimates from experimental data for H bond properties the model predicts that the low-temperature phase diagram of water exhibits a liquid--liquid critical point at positive pressure.
Within the so-called no-mans land between about 150 and 235 K, crystallization of bulk water is inevitable. The glasslike freezing and a liquid-to-liquid transition of water, predicted to occur in this region, can be investigated by confining water in nanometer-sized pores. Here we report the molecular dynamics of water within the pores of a metal-organic framework using dielectric spectroscopy. The detected temperature-dependent dynamics of supercooled water matches that of bulk water as reported outside the borders of the no-mans land. In confinement, a different type of water is formed, nevertheless still undergoing a glass transition with considerable molecular cooperativity. Two different length scales seem to exist in water: A smaller one, of the order of 2 nm, being the cooperativity length scale governing glassy freezing, and a larger one (> 2 nm), characterizing the minimum size of the hydrogen-bonded network needed to create real water with its unique dynamic properties
Recent computational studies have reported evidence of a metastable liquid-liquid phase transition (LLPT) in molecular models of water under deeply supercooled conditions. A competing hypothesis suggests, however, that non-equilibrium artifacts associated with coarsening of the stable crystal phase have been mistaken for an LLPT in these models. Such artifacts are posited to arise due to a separation of time scales in which density fluctuations in the supercooled liquid relax orders of magnitude faster than those associated with bond-orientational order. Here, we use molecular simulation to investigate the relaxation of density and bond-orientational fluctuations in three molecular models of water (ST2, TIP5P and TIP4P/2005) in the vicinity of their reported LLPT. For each model, we find that density is the slowly relaxing variable under such conditions. We also observe similar behavior in the coarse-grained mW model of water. Our findings therefore challenge the key physical assumption underlying the competing hypothesis.e find that density relaxes significantly faster than bond-orientational order, as incorrectly predicted by this competing hypothesis.
Over the years, plenty of classical interaction potentials for water have been developed and tested against structural, dynamical and thermodynamic properties. On the other hands, it has been recently observed (F. Martelli et. al, textit{ACS Nano}, textbf{14}, 8616--8623, 2020) that the topology of the hydrogen bond network (HBN) is a very sensitive measure that should be considered when developing new interaction potentials. Here we report a thorough comparison of 11 popular non polarizable classical water models against their HBN, which is at the root of water properties. We probe the topology of the HBN using the ring statistics and we evaluate the quality of the network inspecting the percentage of broken and intact HBs. For each water model, we assess the tendency to develop hexagonal rings (that promote crystallization at low temperatures) and pentagonal rings (known to frustrate against crystallization at low temperatures). We then introduce the emph{network complexity index}, a general descriptor to quantify how much the topology of a given network deviates from that of the ground state, namely of hexagonal or cubic ice. Remarkably, we find that the network complexity index allows us to relate, for the first time, the dynamical properties of different water models with their underlying topology of the HBN. Our study provides a benchmark against which the performances of new models should be tested against, and introduces a general way to quantify the complexity of a network which can be transferred to other materials and that links the topology of the HBN with dynamical properties. Finally, our study introduces a new perspective that can help in rationalizing the transformations among the different phases of water and of other materials.
Experiments in bulk water confirm the existence of two local arrangements of water molecules with different densities, but, because of inevitable freezing at low temperature $T$, can not ascertain whether the two arrangements separate in two phases. To avoid the freezing, new experiments measure the dynamics of water at low $T$ on the surface of proteins, finding a crossover from a non-Arrhenius regime at high $T$ to a regime that is approximately Arrhenius at low $T$. Motivated by these experiments, Kumar et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 105701 (2008)] investigated, by Monte Carlo simulations and mean field calculations, the relation of the dynamic crossover with the coexistence of two liquid phases in a cell model for water and predict that: (i) the dynamic crossover is isochronic, i.e. the value of the crossover time $tau_{rm L}$ is approximately independent of pressure $P$; (ii) the Arrhenius activation energy $E_{rm A}(P)$ of the low-$T$ regime decreases upon increasing $P$; (iii) the temperature $T^*(P)$ at which $tau$ reaches a fixed macroscopic time $tau^*geq tau_{rm L}$ decreases upon increasing $P$; in particular, this is true also for the crossover temperature $T_{rm L}(P)$ at which $tau=tau_{rm L}$. Here, we compare these predictions with recent quasi elastic neutron scattering (QENS) experiments performed by X.-Q. Chu {it et al.} on hydrated proteins at different values of $P$. We find that the experiments are consistent with these three predictions.
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