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A maximum-entropy approach to the adiabatic freezing of a supercooled liquid
1Dipartimento di Fisica e di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Messina, Messina, Italy. sprestipino@unime.it
Abstract:
I employ the van der Waals theory of Baus and co-workers to analyze the fast, adiabatic decay of a supercooled liquid in a closed vessel with which the solidification process usually starts. By imposing a further constraint on either the system volume or pressure, I use the maximum-entropy method to quantify the fraction of liquid that is transformed into solid as a function of undercooling and of the amount of a foreign gas that could possibly be also present in the test tube. Upon looking at the implications of thermal and mechanical insulation for the energy cost of forming a solid droplet within the liquid, I identify one situation where the onset of solidification inevitably occurs near the wall in contact with the bath.
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