Crossover from nucleation to spinodal decomposition in a condensing vapor.

The mechanism controlling the initial step of a phase transition has a tremendous influence on the emerging phase. We study the crossover from a purely nucleation-controlled transition toward spinodal decomposition in a condensing Lennard-Jones vapor using molecular dynamics simulations. We analyze both the kinetics and at the same time the thermodynamics by directly reconstructing the free energy of cluster formation. We estimate the location of the spinodal, which lies at much deeper supersaturations than expected. Moreover, the nucleation barriers we find differ only by a constant from the classical nucleation theory predictions and are in very good agreement with semiempirical scaling relations. In the regime from very small barriers to the spinodal, growth controls the rate of the transition but not its nature because the activation barrier has not yet vanished. Finally, we discuss in detail the influence of the chosen reaction coordinate on the interpretation of such simulation results.