Effect of a potential softness on the solid-liquid transition in a two-dimensional core-softened potential system

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics to explore how the softness of a core-softened potential influences the melting behavior of a 2D particle system, revealing diverse transition scenarios including first-order, continuous, and reentrant melting.

Contribution

It demonstrates how varying the potential softness alters the melting scenario in 2D systems, including the emergence of reentrant and KTHNY-type transitions.

Findings

Melting behavior depends on potential softness and shoulder width.

Reentrant melting occurs at larger shoulder widths under certain conditions.

Low-density melting involves a continuous two-stage transition with an intermediate hexatic phase.

Abstract

In the present paper, using a molecular dynamics simulation, we study a nature of melting of a two-dimensional ($2D$) system of classical particles interacting through a purely repulsive isotropic core-softened potential which is used for the qualitative description of the anomalous behavior of water and some other liquids. We show that the melting scenario drastically depends on the potential softness and changes with increasing the width of the smooth repulsive shoulder. While at small width of the repulsive shoulder the melting transition exhibits what appears to be weakly first-order behavior, at larger values of the width a reentrant-melting transition occurs upon compression for not too high pressures, and in the low density part of the $2D$ phase diagram melting is a continuous two-stage transition, with an intermediate hexatic phase in accordance with the Kosterlitz-Thouless-Halperin-Nelson-Young (KTHNY) scenario. On the other hand, at high density part of the phase diagram one first-order transition takes place. These results may be useful for the qualitative understanding the behavior of water confined between two hydrophobic plates.