1 research outputs found
Non equilibrium effects in fragmentation
We study, using molecular dynamics techniques, how boundary conditions affect
the process of fragmentation of finite, highly excited, Lennard-Jones systems.
We analyze the behavior of the caloric curves (CC), the associated thermal
response functions (TRF) and cluster mass distributions for constrained and
unconstrained hot drops. It is shown that the resulting CC's for the
constrained case differ from the one in the unconstrained case, mainly in the
presence of a ``vapor branch''. This branch is absent in the free expanding
case even at high energies . This effect is traced to the role played by the
collective expansion motion. On the other hand, we found that the recently
proposed characteristic features of a first order phase transition taking place
in a finite isolated system, i.e. abnormally large kinetic energy fluctuations
and a negative branch in the TRF, are present for the constrained (dilute) as
well the unconstrained case. The microscopic origin of this behavior is also
analyzed.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure