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Entropic and enthalpic phase transitions in high energy density nuclear matter

Features of Gas-Liquid (GL) and Quark-Hadron (QH) phase transitions (PT) in dense nuclear matter are under discussion in comparison with their terrestrial counterparts, e.g. so-called "plasma" PT in shock-compressed hydrogen, nitrogen etc. Both, GLPT and QHPT, when being represented in widely accepted temperature - baryonic chemical potential plane, are often considered as similar, i.e. amenable to one-to-one mapping by simple scaling. It is argued that this impression is illusive and that GLPT and QHPT belong to different classes: GLPT is typical enthalpic PT (Van-der-Waals-like) while QHPT ("deconfinement-driven") is typical entropic PT. Subdivision of 1st-order fluid-fluid phase transitions into enthalpy- and entropy-driven subclasses was proposed previously [arXiv:1403.8053]. Properties of enthalpic and entropic PTs differ significantly. Entropic PTs are always internal parts of more general and extended thermodynamic anomalies - domains with abnormal (negative) sign for the set of (usually positive) second derivatives of thermodynamic potential. Three of them are of primary importance: Gruneizen and thermal expansion and thermal pressure coefficients. Negative sign of these derivatives lead to violation of standard behavior and relative order in P-V plane for many iso-lines, e.g. isotherms, isentropes, shock adiabats etc. Entropic PTs have more complicated topology of stable and metastable areas within its two-phase region in comparison with conventional enthalpic (VdW-like) PTs. In particular, new additional metastable region, bounded by new additional spinodal, appears in the case of entropic PT. All the features of entropic PTs and accompanying abnormal thermodynamics region have transparent geometrical interpretation - multi-layered structure of thermodynamic surfaces for temperature, entropy and internal energy as a pressure-volume functions, e.g. T(P,V), S(P,V) and U(P,V).