Droplet growth during vapor-liquid transition in a 2D Lennard-Jones fluid

TL;DR

This study investigates droplet growth during vapor-liquid phase transition in a 2D Lennard-Jones fluid using molecular dynamics simulations, revealing diffusive cluster motion and power-law growth consistent with theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It provides detailed simulation results on droplet growth kinetics near the vapor branch, including phase diagram and cluster dynamics, which were not previously characterized in this context.

Findings

Clusters exhibit diffusive motion and grow via sticky collisions.

Growth follows a power-law with an exponent matching theoretical predictions.

Phase diagram obtained via Monte Carlo simulations supports the kinetic analysis.

Abstract

Results for the kinetics of vapor-liquid phase transition have been presented from the molecular dynamics simulations of a single component two-dimensional Lennard-Jones fluid. The phase diagram for the model, primary prerequisite for this purpose, has been obtained via the Monte Carlo simulations. Our focus is on the region very close to the vapor branch of the coexistence curve. Quenches to such region provide morphology that consists of disconnected circular liquid clusters in the vapor background. We identified that these clusters exhibit diffusive motion and grow via sticky collisions among them. The growth follows power-law behavior with time, exponent of which is found to be in nice agreement with a theoretical prediction.