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1. Fluid–fluid phase transitions in a chiral molecular model

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0105851  

   Wang, Yiming; Stillinger, Frank H.; Debenedetti, Pablo G. (August 2022, The Journal of Chemical Physics)

   Molecular chirality is a fundamental phenomenon, underlying both life as we know it and industrial pharmaceutical syntheses. Understanding the symmetry breaking phase transitions exhibited by many chiral molecular substances provides basic insights for topics ranging from the origin of life to the rational design of drug manufacturing processes. In this work, we have performed molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the fluid–fluid phase transitions of a flexible three-dimensional four-site chiral molecular model developed by Latinwo et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 145, 154503 (2016)] and Petsev et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 155, 084105 (2021)]. By introducing a bias favoring local homochiral vs heterochiral interactions, the system exhibits a phase transition from a single achiral phase to a single chiral phase that undergoes infrequent interconversion between the two thermodynamically identical chiral states: the L-rich and D-rich phases. According to the phase rule, this reactive binary system has two independent degrees of freedom and exhibits a density-dependent critical locus. Below the liquid–liquid critical locus, there exists a first-order vapor–liquid coexistence region with a single independent degree of freedom. Our results provide basic thermodynamic and kinetic insights for understanding many-body chiral symmetry breaking phenomena. 

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2. Toward a fluid mechanics of suspensions

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.110519  

   Morris, Jeffrey F. (November 2020, Physical Review Fluids)

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3. Non-Newtonian fluid–structure interaction: Flow of a viscoelastic Oldroyd-B fluid in a deformable channel

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnnfm.2023.104990  

   Boyko, Evgeniy; Christov, Ivan C. (March 2023, Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics)
4. Coupled Dynamics of Colloidal Nanoparticle Spreading and Self-Assembly at a Fluid–Fluid Interface

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c00524  

   Balazs, Daniel M.; Dunbar, Tyler A.; Smilgies, Detlef-M.; Hanrath, Tobias (June 2020, Langmuir)

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5. Sequential localization of a complex electron fluid

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908101116  

   Martelli, Valentina; Cai, Ang; Nica, Emilian M.; Taupin, Mathieu; Prokofiev, Andrey; Liu, Chia-Chuan; Lai, Hsin-Hua; Yu, Rong; Ingersent, Kevin; Küchler, Robert; et al (September 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Complex and correlated quantum systems with promise for new functionality often involve entwined electronic degrees of freedom. In such materials, highly unusual properties emerge and could be the result of electron localization. Here, a cubic heavy fermion metal governed by spins and orbitals is chosen as a model system for this physics. Its properties are found to originate from surprisingly simple low-energy behavior, with 2 distinct localization transitions driven by a single degree of freedom at a time. This result is unexpected, but we are able to understand it by advancing the notion of sequential destruction of an SU(4) spin–orbital-coupled Kondo entanglement. Our results implicate electron localization as a unified framework for strongly correlated materials and suggest ways to exploit multiple degrees of freedom for quantum engineering. 

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