Abstract
The solidification of small parahydrogen clusters is studied. In such aggregates, where according to some Authors superfluid properties may be present, the principal antagonist of superfluidity is solidification. In this paper we investigate under what conditions solidification either cannot occur at all, or would occur only in times much longer than the lifetime of the cluster. Due to surface melting effects (enhanced by the van der Waals forces) the exterior layers of the cluster do not solidify. As far as the inner core is concerned, the solidification times depend notoriously strongly on the exact values of the parameters; they also depend strongly on the thickness of the molten layer. Nucleation implies a barrier, which in principle can be overcome either by thermal fluctuations (at relatively high temperatures) or by tunneling (at very low temperatures). Although a better knowledge of the physical properties of parahydrogen (especially the solid–liquid interface energy and the chemical potential of the two phases) is required, we confirm that in both cases the nucleation times can be exceedingly long.
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