Spinodal Decomposition of Metastable Melting in the Zero-Temperature Limit

Abstract

"Conventional" scenario of metastable melting in ordinary substances in the limit of zero temperature assumes that the melting curve reaches the matter zero isotherm ("cold curve"). The same is true for standard variant of one-component plasma model on rigid compensating background in both limits: classical and "cold" quantum melting. The modified OCP on uniform, but compressible background shows the completely different scenario of the metastable melting closure. The remarkable feature of this scenario is that the liquid freezing curve terminates at liquid spinodal curve of 1st-order liquid gas phase transition, which takes place in this type of OCP models ("spinodal decomposition").