Scaled Vapor-to-Liquid Nucleation in a Lennard-Jones System

Abstract

Scaling of the homogenous vapor-to-liquid nucleation rate, $J$, is observed in a model Lennard-Jones (LJ) system. The model uses Monte Carlo simulation--generated small cluster growth to decay rate constant ratios and the kinetic steady-state nucleation rate formalism to determine $J$ at four temperatures below the LJ critical temperature, ${T}_{c}$. When plotted vs the scaled supersaturation, $\mathrm{ln}S/[{T}_{c}/T\ensuremath{-}1{]}^{3/2}$, the values of $\mathrm{log}J$ are found to collapse onto a single line. A similar scaling has been observed for the experimental nucleation rate data of water and toluene.