Reply to "Comment on 'Melting dynamics of superheated argon: Nucleation and growth'" [J. Chem. Phys. 126, 034505 (2007)]

The critical size of melt nuclei in homogeneous nucleation was claimed to be exactly the number of atoms around a single vacancy in the preceding Comment. However, this number only represents a lower limit of the critical size. The melt nuclei in homogeneous nucleation form and grow or shrink via fluctuations. The critical size of a nucleus is inevitably tied to the characteristics of its fluctuations and is about 100 atoms (as opposed to about ten atoms) for argon as shown in our recent work, which lends firm support to phenomenological classical nucleation and growth theories. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.