Energetics and Dynamics of Solvation and Fission in Clusters

Abstract

The nature, properties, and behavior of physical systems depend upon the identity of the constituents and the nature of interactions between them and upon the degree of aggregation and the ambient conditions. Investigations of the energy level structure, elementary excitations, morphology (shape or crystallographical structure), phase transformations and dynamics of finite systems, and their dependence upon the degree and form of aggregation, are common endeavors in the physical sciences spanning a wide spectrum of interaction forms and strengths, spatial dimensions, and temporal scales. Thus the evolution of energetic, structural, dynamical and thermodynamic properties of matter as a function of the degree of aggregation (i.e., size of the system, or number of particles composing it) is of fundamental interest in diverse fields cutting across the disciplines of atomic, molecular, nuclear, intermediate and high-energy particle physics, astrophysics, chemical dynamics, materials science and condensed matter physics. In this context it is of interest to note close analogies between some of the properties and phenomena exhibited by atomic and molecular clusters and those found in atomic nuclei, despite gross differences in the nature of binding in these systems and their spatial extent.