title: Phase diagram of softly repulsive systems: the Gaussian and inverse-power-law potentials.
abstract: We redraw, using state-of-the-art methods for free-energy calculations, the phase diagrams of two reference models for the liquid state: the Gaussian and inverse-power-law repulsive potentials. Notwithstanding the different behaviors of the two potentials for vanishing interparticle distances, their thermodynamic properties are similar in a range of densities and temperatures, being ruled by the competition between the body-centered-cubic (bcc) and face-centered-cubic (fcc) crystalline structures and the fluid phase. We confirm the existence of a reentrant bcc phase in the phase diagram of the Gaussian-core model, just above the triple point. We also trace the bcc-fcc coexistence line of the inverse-power-law model as a function of the power exponent n and relate the common features in the phase diagrams of such systems to the softness degree of the interaction.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Messina, Contrada Papardo, 98166 Messina, Italy. santi.prestipino@unime.it
authors.forename: Santi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prestipino
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Saija
authors.forename: Paolo V
authors.initials: PV
authors.lastname: Giaquinta