Maxima in the thermodynamic response and correlation functions of deeply supercooled water

Abstract

Pointing to a second critical point One explanation for the divergence of many of the thermodynamic properties of water is that there is a critical point in deeply supercooled water at some positive pressure. For bulk water samples, these conditions are described as “no man's land,” because ice nucleates before such temperatures can be reached. Kim et al. used femtosecond x-ray laser pulses to probe micrometer-sized water droplets cooled to 227 K (see the Perspective by Gallo and Stanley). The temperature dependence of the isothermal compressibility and correlation length extracted from x-ray scattering functions showed maxima at 229 K for H 2 O and 233 K for D 2 O, rather than diverging to infinity. These results point to the existence of the Widom line, a locus of maximum correlation lengths emanating from a critical point in the supercooled regime. Science , this issue p. 1589 ; see also p. 1543