Phase Transitions and Dynamics in Bulk and Interfacial Water

TL;DR

This paper combines experiments, simulations, and theoretical models to study the thermodynamic and dynamic behaviors of bulk and interfacial supercooled water, revealing insights into phase transitions and molecular dynamics at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a tractable model of water and demonstrates how Monte Carlo simulations and mean field calculations can interpret complex experimental data at low temperatures.

Findings

Supercooled water exhibits distinct dynamic behaviors at interfaces.

Monte Carlo simulations help interpret experimental results.

Thermodynamic properties of interfacial water differ from bulk water.

Abstract

New experiments for water at the surface of proteins at very low temperature display intriguing dynamic behaviors. The extreme conditions of these experiments make it difficult to explore the wide range of thermodynamic state points needed to offer a suitable interpretation. Detailed simulations suffer the same problem, where equilibration times at low temperature become unreasonably long. We show how Monte Carlo simulations and mean field calculations of a tractable model of water help interpret the experimental results. Here we summarize the results for bulk water and investigate the thermodynamic and dynamic properties of supercooled water at an interface.