Ottinger Hans Christian, Bedeaux Dick, Venerus David C
Department of Materials, Polymer Physics, ETH Zürich, HCI H 543, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2009 Aug;80(2 Pt 1):021606. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.80.021606. Epub 2009 Aug 21.
We develop the general equation for the nonequilibrium reversible-irreversible coupling framework of thermodynamics to handle moving interfaces in the context of a gas that can be dissolved in a surrounding liquid. The key innovation is a "moving interface normal transfer" term required for consistency between the thermodynamic evolution equation and the chain rule of functional calculus. The freedom of atomistic displacements of the interface leads to gauge transformations under which the thermodynamic theory should be invariant. The thermodynamic framework provides a complete set of evolution equations and boundary conditions, as we illustrate for the example of bubble growth and collapse.