Eur. Phys. J. D 24, 197-202 (2003)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2003-00175-8

Phase transformations in highly excited clusters

Departamento de Física Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Pabellón 1 Ciudad Universitaria, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Corresponding author: ^a codorso@df.uba.ar

Received: 10 September 2002
Published online: 3 July 2003

Abstract

In this communication we analyze the behavior of excited drops that undergo fragmentation. We focus our attention on two scenarios: in the first one the system is free to expand, while in the second one it is confined inside a spherical volume. It is shown that the caloric curve of free expanding systems does not display a vapor branch. In the case of constrained ones, they behave as undergoing a first order phase transition at low densities while as a second order one at high densities. The transition from liquid-like to vapor-like behavior is signaled both by the caloric curves and thermal response functions.