Evidence for solid-liquid critical points of water in carbon nanotubes

Thursday, September 24, 2015 - 06:30 in Physics & Chemistry

Many physicists do not accept the idea that a solid-liquid phase boundary can terminate at a critical point—a unique state where two phases lose their separate identities. Why do they not? The authoritative textbook by Landau and Lifshitz says that "we can say only that a particular symmetry property exits or does not exist; ... The critical point therefore cannot exist for such phases." But since 2001, the possibility of the solid-liquid critical point has been reported in computer-simulation studies of water in nanopores. In fact, there is no rigorous proof for the nonexistence of the solid-liquid critical point.

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