The Quantizer problem is a tessellation optimisation problem where point configurations are identified such that the Voronoi cells minimise the second moment of the volume distribution. While the ground state (optimal state) in 3D is almost certainly
the body-centered cubic lattice, disordered and effectively hyperuniform states with energies very close to the ground state exist that result as stable states in an evolution through the geometric Lloyds algorithm [Klatt et al. Nat. Commun., 10, 811 (2019)]. When considered as a statistical mechanics problem at finite temperature, the same system has been termed the Voronoi Liquid by [Ruscher et al. EPL 112, 66003 (2015)]. Here we investigate the cooling behaviour of the Voronoi liquid with a particular view to the stability of the effectively hyperuniform disordered state. As a confirmation of the results by Ruscher et al., we observe, by both molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations, that upon slow quasi-static equilibrium cooling, the Voronoi liquid crystallises from a disordered configuration into the body-centered cubic configuration. By contrast, upon sufficiently fast non-equilibrium cooling (and not just in the limit of a maximally fast quench) the Voronoi liquid adopts similar states as the effectively hyperuniform inherent structures identified by Klatt et al. and prevents the ordering transition into a BCC ordered structure. This result is in line with the geometric intuition that the geometric Lloyds algorithm corresponds to a type of fast quench.
