Strong, weak and metastable liquids. Structural and dynamical aspects of the liquid state

Abstract

Structural and dynamical properties of a model liquid system were studied as a function of the range of the interaction using computer simulations. We observed the usual strong dependency of the global phase diagram on the range of attraction. In systems with long range attractive interactions the structure of the liquid state down to the triple point is determined by the short range repulsive forces. For short ranged attractive interactions however the attraction has a noticeable effect. Although the gas-liquid transition becomes metastable as the attractive range becomes shorter, the change in dynamics in these systems when passing the hidden binodal is gradual rather then abrupt.