Nucleation Theory for Capillary Condensation

TL;DR

This paper develops a simple theoretical model to analyze the thermally activated nucleation process in capillary condensation, comparing it with numerical simulations to understand transition mechanisms and nucleation times.

Contribution

It introduces a new simple model for the critical nucleus in capillary condensation and links the nucleation barrier to transition dynamics, validated by numerical simulations.

Findings

The model accurately predicts nucleation barriers.

Nucleation times are derived from the barrier calculations.

Simulation results support the theoretical predictions.

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the thermally activated dynamics of the capillary condensation. We present a simple model which enables us to identify the critical nucleus involved in the transition mechanism. This simple model is then applied to calculate the nucleation barrier from which we can obtain informations on the nucleation time. These results are compared to the numerical simulation of a Landau-Ginzburg model for the liquid-vapor interface combined with a Langevin dynamics.