Liquid-liquid critical point in heavy water
According to the liquid-liquid critical-point hypothesis about water, two liquid waters exist at low temperatures and are supposed to be merged at a critical point. The low-temperature metastable melting curves of D2O ices have been measured. It is found that the melting curve of D2O ice III is smoothly curved around 25 MPa and 238 K, whereas the melting curve of D2O ice IV undergoes an abrupt change of slope at 100 MPa and 220 K. This is consistent with the existence of a liquid-liquid critical point in the region between the melting curve of D2O ice III and the melting curve of D2O ice IV.
Mishima
O
National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials (NIRIM), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan and Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST), Kawaguchi, Saitama, 332-001.