Self-trapping at the liquid vapor critical point

TL;DR

This paper presents pioneering path-integral simulations of a self-trapped particle at the liquid-vapor critical point, revealing how interaction range affects trapping and decay properties in supercritical fluids.

Contribution

First computational study of self-trapping at the critical point using path-integral methods, exploring interaction range effects and decay rates for ortho-positronium.

Findings

Interaction range influences trapping characteristics

Self-trapping persists at the critical point

Decay rates vary with interaction parameters

Abstract

Experiments suggest that localization via self-trapping plays a central role in the behavior of equilibrated low mass particles in both liquids and in supercritical fluids. In the latter case, the behavior is dominated by the liquid-vapor critical point which is difficult to probe, both experimentally and theoretically. Here, for the first time, we present the results of path-integral computations of the characteristics of a self-trapped particle at the critical point of a Lennard-Jones fluid for a positive particle-atom scattering length. We investigate the influence of the range of the particle-atom interaction on trapping properties, and the pick-off decay rate for the case where the particle is ortho-positronium.