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

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics to explore how a specific isotropic potential exhibits water-like density, diffusion, and structural anomalies, revealing that such anomalies can occur in simple isotropic systems similar to water.

Contribution

It demonstrates that water-like anomalies and their hierarchy can arise in isotropic core-softened potentials, expanding understanding of liquid anomalies beyond water.

Findings

The potential exhibits liquid-liquid coexistence with a critical point.

Density, diffusion, and structural anomalies occur with water-like hierarchy.

Anomalous features are present in isotropic systems like colloids and liquid metals.

Abstract

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.