A microscopic theory of photonucleation: Density functional approach for the properties of a fluid of two-level atoms, a part of which is excited

TL;DR

This paper develops a density functional approach to study photonucleation in a fluid of two-level atoms, analyzing phase transition properties and nucleation barriers involving excited atomic states.

Contribution

It introduces a new density functional method to examine phase transitions and nucleation in two-level atomic fluids, incorporating excited states.

Findings

Calculated nucleation barriers for vapor-liquid transition.

Analyzed effects of atomic excitation on phase behavior.

Proposed a simplified density functional for thermodynamic analysis.

Abstract

We use the density functional method to examine the properties of the nonuniform (two-phase) fluid of two-level atoms, a part of which is excited. Basing on the analysis of the equation of state of a gas of two-level atoms, a part of which is excited, we suggest a simple density functional of the grand thermodynamical potential. We use the proposed density functional of the grand thermodynamical potential to calculate the nucleation barrier for vapor-to-liquid phase transition in the presence of excited atoms.