Rapid heating and cooling in two-dimensional Yukawa systems

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to explore how rapid temperature changes cause superheating and hysteresis in two-dimensional Yukawa systems, revealing that fast heating promotes solid superheating.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation analysis of solid superheating and hysteresis in 2D Yukawa systems under rapid temperature variations, inspired by dusty plasma experiments.

Findings

Hysteresis observed during rapid heating and cooling cycles.

Transient solid superheating occurs without liquid supercooling.

Higher heating rates enhance solid superheating.

Abstract

Simulations are reported to investigate solid superheating and liquid supercooling of two-dimensional (2D) systems with a Yukawa interparticle potential. Motivated by experiments where a dusty plasma is heated and then cooled suddenly, we track particle motion using a simulation with Langevin dynamics. Hysteresis is observed when the temperature is varied rapidly in a heating and cooling cycle. As in the experiment, transient solid superheating, but not liquid supercooling, is observed. Solid superheating, which is characterized by solid structure above the melting point, is found to be promoted by a higher rate of temperature increase.