Phase Transition in the Simplest Plasma Model

TL;DR

This paper studies a phase transition in a plasma model with a compressible background, identifying critical parameters and connecting the transition to charge profile anomalies in non-uniform plasmas.

Contribution

It introduces a variant of the One Component Plasma model with a compressible background and analyzes its phase transition properties.

Findings

Identified critical and triple points in the plasma model

Calculated spinodals and coexistence curves

Linked phase transition to charge profile anomalies

Abstract

We have investigated the phase transition of the gas-liquid type, with an upper critical point, in a variant of the One Component Plasma model (OCP) that has a uniform but compressible compensating background. We have calculated the parameters of the critical and triple points, spinodals, and two-phase coexistence curves (binodals). We have analyzed the connection of this simplest plasma phase transition with anomalies in the spatial charge profiles of equilibrium non-uniform plasma in the local-density approximations of Thomas-Fermi or Poisson-Boltzmann-type.