Figure 1

(Color online) Evolution of the excess energy for different values of $\Gamma$ ($U_{ex}$ is normalized to the absolute value of the bcc lattice excess energy $U_{bcc}$). The dashed lines are the thermodynamic excess energy of [6]. Two simulations at $\Gamma =500,1000$ are shown. Here $N=1024$.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

(Color online) Comparison of the final pair distribution function $g\left(r\right)$ in a simulation at $\Gamma =400$ $(N=4394)$ with the bcc and fcc $g\left(r\right)$ at $\Gamma =400$.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 3

(Color online) Dependence upon $N$ of $U_{ex}\left(t\right)$ at $\Gamma =400$. Dashed lines: excess energy of [6] for the liquid and bcc lattice.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 4

(Color online) Time evolution of $N_{nuc}$, $p^{*}$, $N_s$ (right axis), and $N_p$ (from top to bottom $p=10,15,20,30,40$) in a simulation at $\Gamma =400$ and $N=4394$. See also Fig. 9 for results with $\Gamma =300$ and $N=4394$.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 5

(Color online) Histograms from MD simulations of the number of faces of Voronoi polyhedra in an OCP at $\Gamma =260$ in the supercooled liquid state (i.e., before nucleation), the bcc phase, and the fcc phase.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 6

Histograms from MD simulations of the distribution of signatures of Voronoi polyhedra for the OCP at $\Gamma =260$ in the supercooled liquid phase (before nucleation), the bcc phase, and the fcc phase. We only show the signatures whose proportion is larger than 1.5%; all the other signatures are gathered in the bottom bar labeled “others.” The perfect bcc and fcc signatures are $(0,6,0,8,\dots )$ and $(0,12,0,0,\dots )$, respectively. We note that the $(0,12,0,0,\dots )$ signature does not appear in the histogram for fcc. Indeed thermal distortions destroy the fourfold vertices of the rhombic dodecahedron, which results in a variety of polyhedra that have threefold vertices only. The bcc polyhedron is much more stable as evidenced by the large proportion of $(0,6,0,8,\dots )$ signatures.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 7

(Color online) (upper panel) Histograms from MD simulations of the dot product ${\mathbf{q}}_6\left(i\right)\bullet {\mathbf{q}}_6\left(j\right)$ in an OCP at $\Gamma =260$ in the supercooled liquid state, the bcc phase, and the fcc phase. In each case, the distribution function is the superposition of 100 histograms obtained for 100 configurations separated in time by $2∕{\omega }_p$ along the system trajectory. (Lower panel) Histograms of the number of connections per particle in an OCP at $\Gamma =260$. In each case, the histogram was obtained by averaging over the 100 configurations shown in the upper panel.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 8

Comparison between the total number of nuclei $N_{nuc}$ and the largest nucleus size $p^{*}$ as obtained with the Voronoi polyhedron analysis (black lines) and with the local bond-order parameter analysis (gray lines). Here $\Gamma =300$ and $N=4394$.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 9

Evolution of the ratio $N_s∕N$ and $p^{*}$ for different total number of particles $N$ for an OCP with $\Gamma =400$.Reuse & Permissions