Simulations of Mpemba effect in water and Lennard-Jones models

S Ghosh and P Pathak and S Chatterjee and SK Das, COMMUNICATIONS PHYSICS, 8, 359 (2025).

DOI: 10.1038/s42005-025-02251-6

Understanding why hotter water can freeze faster than colder water - a phenomenon known as the Mpemba effect - is important for gaining deeper insights into systems far from equilibrium. Despite growing interest, this effect has not been demonstrated in computer simulations of ice formation. Using the TIP4P/Ice model, we show that the Mpemba effect appears in our simulated systems and observe its manifestation also during fluid-to-solid transitions in the case of simpler Lennard-Jones systems. We extend this investigation to magnetic transitions, revealing that the effect can arise from different mechanisms: for the TIP4P/Ice model, the effect arises from how long the system remains in a metastable state, while for other systems, it results from differences in critical fluctuations in the initial states. These findings suggest a universal behavior and are contrary to the common belief that metastability is a necessary requirement.

Return to Publications page