Which type of potentials exhibit the anomalous behavior of water?

Note: Special Biophysics Seminar in PRB 595 at 10 AM
Speaker: Marcia Barbosa, Institute of Physics, Rio Grande University, Brazil

When: April 16, 2008 (Wed), 10:00AM to 11:00AM (add to my calendar)
Location: PRB 595
Hosted by: H. Eugene Stanley

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

Abstract:
Water is quite a fascinating liquid. Most liquids contract upon cooling. This is not the case of water, a liquid where the specific volume at ambient pressure starts to increase when cooled below 4 degrees Celcius. Besides, in a certain range of pressures, water also exhibits an anomalous increase of compressibility and specific heat upon cooling. Far less known are its dynamics anomalies: while for most materials diffusivity decreases with increasing pressure, liquid water has an opposite behavior in a large region of the phase diagram. This talk will show that one might be able to construct new molecules with the same anomalies as the one presented in water using two length scale interactions.