arXiv subjects

Cillian Cockrell

Publications and source records attributed to Cillian Cockrell.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Achieving accurate entropy and melting point by ab initio molecular dynamics and zentropy theory: Application to fluoride and chloride molten salts

We have recently developed a breakthrough methodology for rapidly computing entropy in both solids and liquids by integrating a multiscale entropy approach (known as zentropy theory) with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This approach enables entropy estimation from a single MD trajectory by analyzing the probabilities of local structural configurations and atomic distributions, effectively addressing the long-standing challenge of capturing configurational entropy. Here, we demonstrate the power of this method by predicting entropies, enthalpies, and melting points for 25 binary and ternary chlorite- and fluoride-based molten salts using ab initio MD (AIMD) simulations. The strong agreement between our predictions and experimental data underscores the potential of this approach to transform computational thermodynamics, offering accurate, efficient, and direct predictions of thermodynamic properties across both solid and liquid phases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Thermodynamics and transport in molten chloride salts and their mixtures

Molten salts are important in a number of energy applications, but the fundamental mechanisms operating in ionic liquids are poorly understood, particularly at higher temperatures. This is despite their candidacy for deployment in solar cells, next-generation nuclear reactors, and nuclear pyroprocessing. We perform extensive molecular dynamics simulations over a variety of molten chloride salt compositions at varying temperature and pressures to calculate the thermodynamic and transport properties of these liquids. Using recent developments in the theory of liquid thermophysical properties, we interpret our results on the basis of collective atomistic dynamics (phonons). We find that the properties of ionic liquids well explained by their collective dynamics, as in simple liquids. In particular, we relate the decrease of heat capacity, viscosity, and thermal conductivity to the loss of transverse phonons from the liquid spectrum. We observe the singular dependence of the isochoric heat capacity on the mean free path of phonons, and the obeyance of the Stokes-Einstein equation relating the viscosity to the mass diffusion. The transport properties of mixtures are more complicated compared to simple liquids, however viscosity and thermal conductivity are well guided by fundamental bounds proposed recently. The kinematic viscosity and thermal diffusivity lie very close to one another and obey the theoretical fundamental bounds determined solely by fundamental physical constants. Our results show that recent advances in the theoretical physics of liquids are applicable to molten salts mixtures, and therefore that the evolution and interplay of properties common to all liquids may act as a guide to a deeper understanding of these mixtures.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2024

Heat Transport in Ionic Liquids

Heat transfer in liquids is a very challenging problem as it combines the competing effect of high frequency oscillations, which dominate liquid heat capacity, and diffusive motion, which enables transport macroscopic flow. This issue is compounded by the relatively junior state of dynamical theories of liquid thermodynamics. Nevertheless, molten salts are playing an increasingly important role in industrial and energy applications and there is a pressing need to understand the mechanisms behind their irreversible transport processes. Here we use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the heat transport of three different molten salts: LiCl, KCl, and the eutectic point of their mixture. While all simulations consider the properties of the liquid within the frame of its centre of mass, we calculate different susceptibilities which implicitly include and explicitly exclude the heat carried by partial mass currents within this frame. We find that, while the heat advected by partial mass currents in the mixture increases with increasing temperature, the heat transferred by collective vibrational motion (phonons) decreases with increasing temperature. This causes a maximum in the heat conductance with temperature in the mixtures only - in pure salts each contribution decreases monotonically with temperature. We attribute this anomaly to the extra freedom afforded to ionic motion in mixtures - in pure salts the motion of cations and anions is bound due to conservation of linear momentum. In mixtures, a coherent but diffusive collective motion is enabled by the release of Li ions from this condition by the introduction of a third species. We tentatively ascribe this coherent collective motion to the ``diffusive" phonons that have been used to explain a similar anomaly in the thermal conductivity of solids.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Performance of the MACE-MP-0 potential for calculating viscosity in LiF molten salt

We perform molecular dynamics simulations of molten Lithium Fluoride using the MACE-MP-0 (small) machine learnt interatomic potential and the classical Buckingham and Born-Huggins-Mayer potentials. We find that the MACE-MP-0, out-of-the-box, is able to accurately reproduce the experimental viscosity across the liquid state. Whilst the previous predicted viscosities from classical potentials are under-predicted, which has previously been attributed to a suppressed melting temperature. We find that the melting temperature simulated by MACE-MP-0, simply by heating a crystal structure, is significantly closer to the experimental melting temperature of LiF.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Thermodynamic modeling of the LiCl-KCl-LaCl$_3$ system with Bayesian model selection and uncertainty quantification

Chloride molten salts are increasingly used in pyroprocessing techniques for the separation of lanthanides. Understanding thermodynamic properties of these salts is essential to predict their critical characteristics and optimize the separation process. Several thermodynamic models, including the associate model, the two-sublattice ionic model, and the modified quasichemical model with quadruplet approximation (MQMQA), have been utilized in the literature to capture the complexity of molten salts. In the present work, the Bayes factor is used to guide the model selection process for thermodynamic modeling of the KCl-LaCl3 system and provide statistical comparison of various models. The results indicate that the MQMQA model is the most favorable one based on available data. The LiCl-KCl-LaCl3 system has been further modelled with uncertainty quantification (UQ) using MQMQA with the thermodynamic properties of compounds in KCl-LaCl3 predicted by the quasiharmonic approach in terms of first-principles phonon calculations as a function of temperature. The calculated phase stability shows excellent agreement with experimental data, indicating that an appropriate thermodynamic model is important for accurately predicting critical characteristics of complex molten salts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Configurational and Vibrational Entropy in Hydrogen-bonded Fluids

The thermodynamics of liquids and supercritical fluids is notorious for eluding a general theory, as can be done for crystalline solids on the basis of phonons and crystal symmetry. The extension of solid state notions such as configurational entropy and phonons to the liquid state remains an intriguing but challenging topic. This is particularly true for liquids like water whose many structural anomalies give it unique properties. Here, for simple fluids, we specify the thermodynamics across the liquid, supercritical, and gaseous states using the spectrum of propagating phonons, thereby determining the non-ideal entropy of the fluid using a single parameter arising from this phonon spectrum. This identifies a marked distinction between these "simple" fluids, and hydrogen bonded fluids whose non-ideal entropy cannot be determined by the phonon spectrum alone. We relate this phonon theory of thermodynamics to the previously observed excess entropy scaling in liquids and how the phonon spectrum creates corresponding states across the fluid phase diagram. These results provide important theoretical understanding to supercritical fluid, whose properties are still poorly understood despite widespread deployment in environmental and energy applications.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2023

Fast dynamics and high effective dimensionality of liquid fluidity

Fluidity, the ability of liquids to flow, is the key property distinguishing liquids from solids. This fluidity is set by the mobile transit atoms moving from one quasi-equilibrium point to the next. The nature of this transit motion is unknown. Here, we show that flow-enabling transits form a dynamically distinct sub-ensemble where atoms move on average faster than the overall system, with a manifestly non-Maxwellian velocity distribution. This is in contrast to solids and gases where no distinction of different ensembles can be made and where the distribution is always Maxwellian. The non-Maxwellian distribution is described by an exponent $\alpha$ corresponding to high dimensionality of space. This is generally similar to extra synthetic dimensions in topological quantum matter, albeit higher dimensionality in liquids is not integer but is fractional. The dimensionality is close to 4 at melting and exceeds 4 at high temperature. $\alpha$ has a maximum as a function of temperature and pressure in liquid and supercritical states, returning to its Maxwell value in the solid and gas states.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2022

Double universality of the transition in the supercritical state

Universality aids consistent understanding of physical properties. This includes understanding the states of matter where a theory predicts how a property of a phase (solid, liquid, gas) changes with temperature or pressure. Here, we show that the matter above the critical point has a remarkable double universality not limited by pressure and temperature. The first universality is the transition between the liquidlike and gaslike states seen in the crossover of the specific heat on the dynamical length scale in deeply supercritical state and characterised by a fixed inversion point. The second universality is the operation of this effect in many supercritical fluids, including N$_2$, CO$_2$, Pb, H$_2$0 and Ar. Despite the differences in structure and chemical bonding in these fluids, the transition has the same fixed inversion point deep in the supercritical state. This provides new understanding of the supercritical state previously considered to be a featureless area on the phase diagram and a theoretical guide for improved and more efficient deployment of supercritical fluids in green and environmental applications.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2022

Stochastic Thermodynamics in a Non-Markovian Dynamical System

The developing field of stochastic thermodynamics extends concepts of macroscopic thermodynamics such as entropy production and work to the microscopic level of individual trajectories taken by a system through phase space. The scheme involves coupling the system to an environment - typically a source of Markovian noise that affects the dynamics of the system. Here we extend this framework to consider a non-Markovian environment, one whose dynamics have memory and which create additional correlations with the system variables, and illustrate this with a selection of simple examples. Such an environment produces a rich variety of behaviours. In particular, for a case of thermal relaxation, the distributions of entropy produced under the non-Markovian dynamics differ from the equivalent case of Markovian dynamics only by a delay time. When a time-dependent external work protocol is turned on, the system's correlations with the environment can either assist or hinder its approach to equilibrium, and affect its production of entropy, depending on the coupling strength between the system and environment.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2021

Transition in the supercritical state of matter: experimental evidence

A large and mostly unexplored part of the phase diagram lies above the critical point. The supercritical matter was traditionally believed to be physically homogeneous with no discernible differences between liquidlike and gaslike states. More recently, several proposals have been put forward challenging this view, and here we review the history of this research. Close to the critical point, persisting critical anomalies enable the separation of the supercritical state into two different states. About a decade ago, it was proposed that the Frenkel line (FL), corresponding to the dynamical transition of particle motion and related thermodynamic and structural transitions, gives a unique and path-independent way to separate the supercritical states into two qualitatively different states and extends to arbitrarily high pressure and temperature on the phase diagram. Here, we review several lines of enquiry that followed. We focus on the experimental evidence of transitions in deeply supercritical Ne, N$_2$, CH$_4$, C$_2$H$_6$, CO$_2$ and H$_2$O at the FL detected by a number of techniques including X-ray, neutron and Raman scattering experiments. %Except for H$_2$O, these experiments were stimulated by the FL and followed the state points of the FL mapped in preceding calculations. We subsequently summarise other developments in the field, including recent extensions of analysis of dynamics at the FL, quantum simulations, topological and geometrical approaches as well as universality of properties at the FL. Finally, we review current theoretical understanding of the supercritical state and list open problems in the field.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2021

Universal interrelation between dynamics and thermodynamics of fluids: dynamically-driven "c"-transition

Our first very wide survey of the supercritical phase diagram and its key properties reveals a universal interrelation between dynamics and thermodynamics and an unambiguous transition between liquidlike and gaslike states. This is seen in the master plot showing a collapse of the data representing the dependence of specific heat on key dynamical parameters in the system for many different paths on the phase diagram. As a result, the observed transition is path-independent. We call it a "c"-transition due to the "c"-shaped curve parameterizing the dependence of the specific heat on key dynamical parameters. The "c"-transition has a fixed inversion point and provides a new structure to the phase diagram, operating deep in the supercritical state (up to at least 2000 times the critical pressure and 50 times the critical temperature). The data collapse and path independence as well as the existence of a special inversion point on the phase diagram are indicative of either of a sharp crossover or a new phase transition in the deeply supercritical state.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2020

Collective modes and gapped momentum states in liquid Ga: experiment, theory and simulation

Collective excitations in liquids are important for understanding liquid dynamical and thermodynamic properties. Gapped momentum states (GMS) are a notable feature of liquid dynamics predicted to operate in the transverse sector of collective excitations. Here, we combine inelastic neutron scattering experiments, theory and molecular dynamics modelling to study collective excitations and GMS in liquid Ga in a wide range of temperature and $k$-points. We find that all three lines of enquiry agree for the longitudinal sector of liquid dynamics. In the transverse sector, the experiments agree with theory, modelling as well as earlier X-ray experiments at larger $k$, whereas theory and modelling agree in a wide range of temperature and $k$-points. We observe the emergence and development of the $k$-gap in the transverse sector which increases with temperature and inverse of relaxation time as predicted theoretically.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Pronounced structural crossover in supercritical water

There have been ample studies of the many phases of H2O in both its solid and low pressure liquid states, and the transitions between them. Using molecular dynamics simulations we address the hitherto unexplored deeply supercritical pressures, where no qualitative transitions are thought to take place and where all properties are expected to vary smoothly. On the basis of these simulations we predict that water at supercritical pressures undergoes a structural crossover across the Frenkel line at pressures as high as 45 times the critical pressure. This provides a new insight into the water phase diagram and establishes a link between the structural and dynamical properties of supercritical water. Specifically, the crossover is demonstrated by a sharp and pronounced at low pressures, and smooth at high pressures, signified by changes in the pair distribution functions and local coordination which coincide with the dynamical transition (the loss of all oscillatory molecular motion) at the Frenkel line on the phase diagram.

cond-mat.soft↗