The water supercooled regime as described by four common water models

The temperature scale of simple water models in general does not coincide with the natural one. Therefore, in order to make a meaningful evaluation of different water models a temperature rescaling is necessary. In this paper we introduce a rescaling using the melting temperature and the temperature corresponding to the maximum of the heat capacity to evaluate four common water models (TIP4P-Ew, TIP4P-2005, TIP5P-Ew and Six-Sites) in the supercooled regime. Although all the models show the same general qualitative behavior, the TIP5P-Ew appears as the best representation of the supercooled regime when the rescaled temperature is used. We also analyze, using thermodynamic arguments, the critical nucleus size for ice growth. Finally, we speculate on the possible reasons why atomistic models do not usually crystalize while the coarse grained mW model do crystallize.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

El "Horizonte Brocherense" del Valle de San Alberto, Córdoba, Argentina : Consideraciones taxonómicas e implicancias bioestratigráficas

En 1942 Castellanos formalizó el horizonte "Brocherense" sobre una particular asociación de mamíferos fósiles hallados por él en el Valle de San Alberto (localidades de Villa Cura Brochero y Nono, provincia de Córdoba), compuesta por Nonotherium henningi Castellanos, Paedotherium brocherense Castellanos y Nopachthus coagmentatus Ameghino. En dicha asociación, Castellanos incluyó otros taxones provenientes de Córdoba, Paraglyptodon cordubensis Ameghino y Propanochthus bullifer Burmeister, aunque carecen de procedencia estratigráfica y geográfica precisa. Esta composición paleofaunística llevó a Castellanos a ubicarla temporalmente entre el Chapadmalalense (Plioceno tardío basal) y el Ensenadense (Pleistoceno temprano-medio). Posteriormente, la presencia de Nopachthus, taxón exclusivo del Montehermosense (Mioceno tardío cuspidal?-Plioceno temprano) y la asignación preliminar de Nonotherium henningi a Xotodon, taxón cuyo último registro se presenta en el Chapadmalalense, llevó a postular que dichos sedimentos eran asignables al Plioceno temprano-Plioceno tardío basal. Una reevaluación de los materiales colectados por Castellanos permitió reconocer que: 1) Nonotherium es un género válido que si bien posee la forma de los molariformes similar a Xotodon, presenta algunas particularidades, e.g., diastema más extenso, mayor tamaño y extensión de los nasales; 2) los restos preservados de Paedotherium no permiten una asignación específica y 3) Nopachthus coagmentatus es reasignado a Phyctaenophyga sp. ya que los osteodermos presentan en su superficie externa una figura central notablemente convexa, a diferencia de los osteodermos de Nopachthus, en los que esta figura es plana o muy suavemente convexa. Esta nueva asociación es correlacionable también con el Huayqueriense (Mioceno tardío) dadas las distribuciones temporales hoy reconocidas para estos taxones: Paedotherium del Chasiquense (Mioceno tardío basal) al Marplatense- Ensenadense? (Plioceno tardío-Pleistoceno temprano a medio), Phyctaenophyga sp. Huayqueriense y Nonotherium exclusivo del "Brocherense". Por ello, se postula que el "horizonte Brocherense" también incluiría el Mioceno tardío, aunque restan confirmaciones mediante estudios faunísticos, de paleomagnetismo y dataciones radiométricas.Sesiones libresFacultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

How large is "large NcN_c" for Nuclear matter?

We argue that a so far neglected dimensionless scale, the number of neighbors in a closely packed system, is relevant for the convergence of the large $N_c$ expansion at high chemical potential. It is only when the number of colors is large w.r.t. this new scale (\sim \order{10}) that a convergent large $N_c$ limit is reached. This provides an explanation as to why the large $N_c$ expansion, qualitatively successful in in vacuum QCD, fails to describe high baryo-chemical potential systems, such as nuclear matter. It also means that phenomenological claims about high density matter based on large $N_c$ extrapolations should be treated with caution.Comment: Proceedings of CPOD2010 conference, in Dubna. Results based on Phys.Rev.C82, 055202 (2010), http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.247

Anomalous vacuum energy and stability of a quantum liquid

KT is grateful to EPSRC and V V Brazhkin to RSF 14-22- 00093 for support

Phase diagrams in nonlocal PNJL models constrained by Lattice QCD results

Based on lattice QCD-adjusted SU(2) nonlocal Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) models, we investigate how the location of the critical endpoint in the QCD phase diagram depends on the strenght of the vector meson coupling, as well as the Polyakov-loop (PL) potential and the form factors of the covariant model. The latter are constrained by lattice QCD data for the quark propagator. The strength of the vector coupling is adjusted such as to reproduce the slope of the pseudocritical temperature for the chiral phase transition at low chemical potential extracted recently from lattice QCD simulations. Our study supports the existence of a critical endpoint in the QCD phase diagram albeit the constraint for the vector coupling shifts its location to lower temperatures and higher baryochemical potentials than in the case without it.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures. Version accepted in Phys. Part. Nucl. Lett. (to appear), references adde

Chiral Modulations in Curved Space II: Conifold Geometries

In this paper, we extend our previous analysis concerning the formation of inhomogeneous condensates in strongly-coupled fermion effective field theories on curved spaces and include the case of conifold geometries that represent the simplest tractable case of manifolds with curvature singularities. In the set-up considered here, by keeping the genuine thermodynamical temperature constant, we may single out the role that curvature effects play on the breaking/restoration of chiral symmetry and on the appearance of inhomogeneous phases. The first goal of this paper is to construct a general expression of the finite temperature effective action for inhomogeneous condensates in the case of four-fermion effective field theories on conifold geometries with generic Riemannian smooth base (generalised cones). The other goal is to implement numerically the above formal results and construct self-consistent solutions for the condensate. We explicitly show that the condensate assumes a kink-like profile, vanishing at the singularity that is surrounded by a bubble of restored chiral symmetry phase.Comment: 14 pages; 4 figure