A System with Multiple Liquid-Liquid Critical Points

TL;DR

This paper investigates a three-dimensional particle system with stepwise pair potentials, revealing the existence of three distinct first-order fluid phase transitions each culminating in a critical point, expanding understanding of complex phase behaviors.

Contribution

It demonstrates the presence of multiple liquid-liquid critical points in a single system with discontinuous pair potentials, a novel finding in phase transition studies.

Findings

System exhibits three first-order phase transitions.

Each transition ends in a critical point.

Multiple critical points depend on potential parameters.

Abstract

We study a three-dimensional system of particles interacting via spherically-symmetric pair potentials consisting of several discontinuous steps. We show that at certain values of the parameters desribing the potential, the system has three first-order phase transitions between fluids of different densities ending in three critical points.