the liquid phase than in the gas phase. This is due to the repulsive isovector channel of the nuclear interaction [@xu00; @ducoin06; @chomaz].

In a recent work the spinodal section and related quantities, as the neutron to proton density fluctuations responsible for the distillation effect, has been studied within different relativistic models [@inst062]. It was shown that the distillation effect within density dependent relativistic models decreases with density above a nuclear density of $\sim 0.02-0.03$ fm$^{-3}$, a result similar to the one obtained with the SLy230a parametrization of Skyrme interaction [@chabanat] and contrary to the results found with the more common relativistic parametrizations with no density dependent coupling parameters. In the last case the distillation effect becomes always larger as the density increases.

Also, the behavior of the symmetry energy obtained with density dependent models is closer to what one obtains with non-relativistic models than with other relativistic models with constant couplings [@inst04]. In an attempt to understand this behavior, a comparison between the non-relativistic Skyrme effective force and relativistic mean field models at subsaturation densities was performed [@comp]. It was shown that the relativistic models could also be reduced to an energy density functional similar to the one describing 