title: Homogeneous crystal nucleation near a metastable fluid-fluid phase transition.
abstract: Several scenarios exist for the protein crystallization and aggregation in solutions near a metastable fluid-fluid phase separation below the solubility line. Based on computations, it was proposed that the fluid-fluid critical point enhances the crystallization rate by many orders of magnitude, while, based on experiments, it was proposed that the fluid-fluid spinodal controls the crystallization rate. Using molecular dynamic simulations for an isotropic model with sticky interaction, we show that neither of these scenarios adequately describes the crystallization mechanism near a metastable fluid-fluid phase separation. We find that the emergence of the high-density fluid inside the spinodal drastically enhances the crystal nucleation in the subcritical region following Ostwald's rule of stages.
authors.affiliation: International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University, Haidian District, Beijing 100871, China.
authors.forename: Limei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Sergey V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Buldyrev
authors.forename: H Eugene
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Stanley
authors.forename: Giancarlo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Franzese
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D007700:Kinetics; D008956:Models, Chemical; D044367:Phase Transition; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins