Sub- and super-Maxwellian evaporation of simple gases from liquid water.

Non-Maxwellian evaporation of light atoms and molecules (particles) such as He and H2 from liquids has been observed experimentally. In this work, we use simulations to study systematically the evaporation of Lennard-Jones particles from liquid water. We find instances of sub- and super-Maxwellian evaporation, depending on the mass of the particle and the particle-water interaction strength. The observed trends are in qualitative agreement with experiment. We interpret these trends in terms of the potential of mean force and the effectiveness and frequency of collisions during the evaporation process. The angular distribution of evaporating particles is also analyzed, and it is shown that trends in the energy from velocity components tangential and normal to the liquid surface must be understood separately in order to interpret properly the angular distributions.

Low-frequency dynamics of aqueous alkali chloride solutions as probed by terahertz spectroscopy.

Terahertz (far infrared) spectroscopy provides a useful tool for probing both ionic motions in solution and the effect of ionic solutes on the dynamics of the solvent. In this study, we calculate terahertz spectra of aqueous alkali chloride solutions using classical but novel (the water model includes three-body interactions, the ion parameterization is non-standard, and the dipole surface is polarizable) molecular dynamics simulations. The calculated spectra compare reasonably well to experimental spectra. Decomposition of the calculated spectra is used to gain a deeper understanding of the physical phenomena underlying the spectra and the connection to, for instance, the vibrational density of states for the ions. The decomposed results are also used to explain many of the cation-dependent trends observed in the experimental spectra.

A scaled-ionic-charge simulation model that reproduces enhanced and suppressed water diffusion in aqueous salt solutions.

Non-polarizable models for ions and water quantitatively and qualitatively misrepresent the salt concentration dependence of water diffusion in electrolyte solutions. In particular, experiment shows that the water diffusion coefficient increases in the presence of salts of low charge density (e.g., CsI), whereas the results of simulations with non-polarizable models show a decrease of the water diffusion coefficient in all alkali halide solutions. We present a simple charge-scaling method based on the ratio of the solvent dielectric constants from simulation and experiment. Using an ion model that was developed independently of a solvent, i.e., in the crystalline solid, this method improves the water diffusion trends across a range of water models. When used with a good-quality water model, e.g., TIP4P/2005 or E3B, this method recovers the qualitative behaviour of the water diffusion trends. The model and method used were also shown to give good results for other structural and dynamic properties including solution density, radial distribution functions, and ion diffusion coefficients.