Is water one liquid or two?

• Published in: The Journal of chemical physics Vol. 150; no. 23; pp. 234503 - 234517
• Main Author: Soper, A. K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Institute of Physics 21.06.2019
• Subjects: Density; Diffusion coefficient; Empirical analysis; Entropy; Ideal gas; Liquid phases; Order parameters; Spherical harmonics; Thermal expansion; Variation; Water compressibility; X-ray scattering

The idea that water is a mixture of two distinct states is analyzed in some detail. It is shown that the known compressibility of water is in fact sufficiently small that for a volume of water of size 1 nm3, the density fluctuations are of order 4% of the average density. This is much smaller than t...