Evidence of a two-state picture for supercooled water and its connections with glassy dynamics
The picture of liquid water as consisting of a mixture of molecules of two different structural states (structured, low-density molecules and unstructured, high-density ones) represents a belief that has been around for long time awaiting for a conclusive validation. While in the last years some ind...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication date: | 2009 |
| Country: | Argentina |
| Institution: | Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas |
| Repository: | CONICET Digital (CONICET) |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/66172 |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11336/66172 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Water Supercooled Liquids Two-State Picture Relaxation https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3 https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1 |
| Summary: | The picture of liquid water as consisting of a mixture of molecules of two different structural states (structured, low-density molecules and unstructured, high-density ones) represents a belief that has been around for long time awaiting for a conclusive validation. While in the last years some indicators have indeed provided certain evidence for the existence of structurally different ``species´´, a more definite bimodality in the distribution function of a sound structural quantity would be desired. In this context, our present work combines the use of a structural parameter with a minimization technique to yield neat bimodal distributions in a temperature range within the supercooled liquid regime, thus clearly revealing the presence of two populations of differently structured water molecules. Furthermore, we elucidate the role of the inter-conversion between the identified two kinds of states for the dynamics of structural relaxation, thus linking structural information to dynamics, a longstanding issue in glass physics. |
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