Heterogeneities in confined water and protein hydration water

We report recent efforts to understand a broad range of experiments on confined water and protein hydration water, many initiated by a collaboration between workers at the University of Messina and MIT-the editors of this special issue. Preliminary calculations are not inconsistent with one tentative interpretation of these experiments as resulting from the system passing from the high-temperature high-pressure 'HDL' side of the Widom line (where the liquid might display non-Arrhenius behavior) to the low-temperature low-pressure 'LDL' side of the Widom line (where the liquid might display Arrhenius behavior). The Widom line-defined to be the line in the pressure-temperature plane where the correlation length has its maximum-arises if there is a critical point. Hence, interpreting the Messina-MIT experiments in terms of a Widom line is of potential relevance to testing, experimentally, the hypothesis that water displays a liquid-liquid critical point.