Homogeneous Bubble Nucleation Driven by Local Hot Spots: A Molecular Dynamics Study† (original) (raw)

We report a Molecular Dynamics study of homogenous bubble nucleation in a Lennard-Jones fluid. The rate of bubble nucleation is estimated using forward-flux sampling (FFS). We find that cavitation starts with compact bubbles rather than with ramified structures as had been suggested by Shen and Debenedetti ( J. Chem. Phys. 111, 3581 (1999)). Our estimate of the bubblenucleation rate is higher than predicted on the basis of Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT). Our simulations show that local temperature fluctuations correlate strongly with subsequent bubble formation -this mechanism is not taken into account in CNT.