A Potential Energy Landscape Study of the Amorphous-Amorphous Transformation in H$_2$O

摘要

We study the potential energy landscape explored during acompression-decompression cycle for the SPC/E (extended simple point charge)model of water. During the cycle, the system changes from low density amorphousice (LDA) to high density amorphous ice (HDA). After the cycle, the system doesnot return to the same region of the landscape, supporting the interestingpossibility that more than one significantly different configurationcorresponds to LDA. We find that the regions of the landscape explored duringthis transition have properties remarkably different from those explored inthermal equilibrium in the liquid phase.