Monte Carlo values for the radial distribution function of a system of fluid hard spheres

The perturbation theory recently developed by Weeks, Chandler, and Andersen is applied to the solid phase of a rare gas near its melting line. The potential is separated into two parts: a reference part containing all the repulsive forces and a perturbation part containing all the attractions. We show that the expansion of the free energy in the perturbation potential is, as in the liquid phase, rapidly convergent for a temperature of the order of the triple-point temperature. On the contrary, the representation of the reference system by hard spheres with an appropriate diameter is less accurate than in the liquid phase. This representation requires the knowledge of the radial distribution functions of the hard-sphere solid for which we give a tabulation as well as an analytical representation. The perturbation theory is applied to the determination of the fluid-solid transition.     

Analysis of the liquid structure of 3d transition metals from the Wills-Harrison model

Calculations of the liquid structure of 3d transition metals from the effective pair interactions of Wills and Harrison are performed by using the optimized random phase approximation in order to point out the influence of thes-electron pseudopotential on the repulsive and attractive forces governing the liquid structure. Our results are compared to those obtained in the Weeks, Chandler Andersen approximation and in the thermodynamic variational method.     

Perturbation theory and the excess properties of mixtures of simple liquids

One of the most successful theories of single-component simple liquids is perturbation theory which is based on the assumption that the structure of a liquid is primarily determined by the repulsive forces between its molecules, so that a liquid may be regarded as a system of hard spheres with the attractive forces providing a uniform background energy. Our earlier extension of these ideas to liquid mixtures was only partially successful. In this paper we show that this problem was due to the use of a somewhat unsatisfactory equation of state for the reference hard-sphere mixture. If a more satisfactory equation of state is used, perturbation theory yields results in close agreement with Monte Carlo and experimental results, even when the molecules of the mixture differ appreciably in size.     

Electrical conductivity and thermopower of metallic helium

The pair effective interionic interaction, electrical resistance, and thermopower of liquid metallic helium have been calculated over wide temperature and density ranges using the perturbation theory for the potential of electron-ion interaction. For conduction electrons, the random-phase approximation has been used taking into account the exchange interaction and correlations in the local-field approximation. The nuclear subsystem has been described by the hard-sphere model. The sphere diameter is the only parameter of the theory. The diameter and the system density at which helium is transformed from the singly ionized to doubly ionized state have been estimated based on an analysis of the pair effective interaction between helium nuclei. The case of doubly ionized helium atoms has been considered. The numerical calculations have been performed taking into account the perturbation theory in terms up to the third order. In all cases, the role of the third-order correction is significant. In the case of metallic helium, the values of the electrical resistance and its temperature dependence are characteristic of divalent simple liquid metals, as well as the dependences of the thermopower on the density and temperature.     

Liquid-liquid critical point: an analytical approach

Theoretical simulations and experimental studies have showed that many systems (like liquid metals) can exhibit two phase transitions: gas-liquid and liquid-liquid. Consequently the fluid phase of these systems presents two critical points, namely the usual gas-liquid (G-L) critical point and the liquid-liquid critical point that results from a phase transition between two liquids of different densities: a low density liquid (LDL) and a high density liquid (HDL). The van der Waals theory for simple fluids [Phys. Rev. E 50, 2913 (1994)] is based on taking a system with purely repulsive forces as a reference, is able to describe two stable first-order phase transitions between fluids of different densities. The particles in our system interact via a total pair potential, which splits into a repulsive V_R and a density-dependent attractive V_A part.     

Pertubation theory for systems with strong short-ranged interactions

We propose a variant of thermodynamic perturbation theory based on the Mayer f-function which is applicable to strongly repulsive, and even singular interactions. The expansion of the free energy is successfully tested against known ‘exact results’ for hard-sphere fluids, and then applied to binary mixtures of particles with non-additive hard cores or shouldered potentials. The resulting phase diagrams agree well with existing simulation data and theoretical predictions.     

Perturbation theory for mixtures of simple liquids

The perturbation approach developed by Weeks, Chandler, and Andersen (WCA) and by Verlet and Weis (VW) for pure systems is here generalized to the case of mixtures. We study binary mixtures of molecules interacting with the 12–6 Lennard-Jones potential, for which Monte Carlo simulations are available for comparison. The work is divided into two parts: The first part presents results of Monte Carlo calculations on mixtures of hard spheres of 864 and 1000 particles. The radial distribution functions generated are used to test the VW representation for the correlation functions of hard-sphere mixtures. This representation is found to work satisfactorily within the expected error limits. The second part deals with the two-step perturbation procedure for calculating the thermodynamic quantities of the Lennard-Jones system. The Lennard-Jones potential is divided into a reference potential, which is strictly repulsive, and an attractive part. The system of the reference potential is represented by a system of hard-sphere mixture with equivalent diameters determined by the WCA rule. Analytical expressions are given for evaluating these equivalent diameters. The Lennard-Jones system is then recovered to the first order by a λ expansion over the reference system. Comparison with Monte Carlo results for a mixture of Lennard-Jones molecules, obeying the Berthelot rule, shows that the total thermodynamic properties are reproduced by the perturbation theory to 1 per cent, while the agreement in excess properties is only moderately successful, similar to some other analytical theories compared here. To reproduce these excess properties, which are extremely small, a precision of 0·1 per cent in the theory is required. The present theory is estimated to be accurate to 1 per cent in view of the successive approximations made.     

The effect of steepness of soft-core square-well potential model on some fluid properties

The effect of repulsive steepness of the soft-core square well (SCSW) potential model on the second virial coefficient, critical behaviour (two- phase region and the position of critical point), and coordination number are investigated. The soft-core thermodynamic perturbation theory (TPT) presented by Weeks-Chandler-Anderson (WCA) recently developed by Ben-Amotz and Stell (BAS) has been used for the reference system, and the Barker-Henderson TPT for the perturbed system. The Barker-Henderson macroscopic compressibility approximation has been used for all order perturbation terms in which the second-order one is improved by assuming that the molecules in every two neighbouring shells are correlated upon the original assumption. By using the hard-sphere isothermal compressibility consistency for the radial distribution function (RDF), an analytical closed expression has been derived for the Helmholtz free energy function contained effective hard-sphere diameter. The accuracy of the model has been examined for the hard-core system, and an appropriate range found for the attractive width of the potential well (R), then the effect of steepness parameter on the critical quantities, coordination number, and the inversion temperature of the second virial coefficient, has been investigated qualitatively. The predicted results are in good agreement with the computer simulation data for the critical constants, and coordination number at the limit of the hard-core square-well potential model at least qualitatively, and for the attractive range 1.55 ≤ R ≤ 1.7, quantitatively. It was found that the steepness of the potential model has a marginal effect on the critical behaviour, and also every thermodynamic quantity at low and medium temperatures for which the molecular penetration is negligible, but since the penetration at high temperatures is significant, the role of the steepness of potential on the inversion temperature of the second virial coefficient and coordination number is highlighted.     

The influence of pair potentials on the structure of polyvalent liquid metals

The structure factors of some polyvalent liquid metals show a shoulder on their first peak. We explain these shoulders on the basis of ionic pair potentials : a shoulder is expected near the wave vector 2k_F, the wave length of the oscillations in the metallic pair potentials. To show this quantitatively, we used the “optimized random phase approximation” of Andersen et al.     

Thermodynamic perturbation theory for the (12-6-n) fluids

A perturbation method in which attractive forces are taken as perturbation of the repulsive (reference) forces is applied to calculate the thermodynamic properties of (12-6-n) fluids in terms of the properties of hard-sphere fluid. The numerical values of the thermodynamic properties (free energy per particle, compressibility and excess internal energy) for a range of temperature and density are given for (12-6-8) fluids. Further, two perturbation schemes are adopted to evaluate the total radial distribution function using the EXP version of the optimized cluster theory (OCT). The numerical results are reliable as reported at two states (T* = 1·036,ρ* = 0·65 andT* = 0·719ρ* = 0·85) for the (12-6-8) fluid and the Lennard-Jones (12-6) fluid as well.     

Freezing of Classical Fluids in a Quenched Random Potential

The phase diagram of a hard-sphere fluid in the presence of a random pinning potential is studied analytically and numerically. In the analytic work, replicas are introduced for averaging over the quenched disorder, and the hypernetted chain approximation is used to calculate density correlations in the replicated liquid. The freezing transition of the liquid into a nearly crystalline state is studied using a density-functional approach, and the liquid to glass transition is studied using a phenomenological replica symmetry breaking approach. In the numerical work, local minima of a discretized version of the Ramakrishnan-Yussouff free-energy functional are located and the phase diagram in the density-disorder plane is obtained from an analysis of the relative stability of these minima. Both approaches lead to similar results for the phase diagram. The first-order liquid to crystalline solid transition is found to change to a continuous liquid to glass transition as the strength of the disorder is increased above a threshold value.     

Thermodynamic perturbation theory for polydisperse colloidal suspensions using orthogonal polynomial expansions

We present a method for calculating the thermodynamic and structural properties of a polydisperse liquid by means of a thermodynamic perturbation theory: the optimized random phase approximation (ORPA). The approach is an extension of a method proposed recently by one of us for an integral equation application [Phys. Rev. E 54, 4411 (1996)]. The method is based on expansions of all sigma-dependent functions in the orthogonal polynomials p(i)(sigma) associated with the weight function f(Sigma)(sigma), where sigma is a random variable (in our case the size of the particles) with distribution f(Sigma)(sigma). As in the one-component or general N-component case, one can show that the solution of the ORPA is equivalent to the minimization of a suitably chosen functional with respect to variations of the direct correlation functions. To illustrate the method, we study a polydisperse system of square-well particles; extension to other hard-core or soft-core systems is straightforward.     

The structure of molten germanium

We present a calculation of the structure of molten Ge, based on pseudopotential-derived interatomic forces and the optimized random phase approximation. Good agreement with experiment is achieved. We show that the complex structure of liquid Ge results from the interplay of two characteristic distances: the effective hardcore diameter and the Friedel wavelength of the long range oscillations in the interatomic potential.     

Structure and thermodynamics of polar interaction site fluids

We present results for the structure and thermodynamics of the dipolar hard dumbbell fluid obtained from a recently developed theory which is based on an extension of cluster perturbation theory (CPT) for atomic fluids to the interaction site formalism. The calculations are for the lowest order result in the theory which we denote as the optimized random phase approximation in the interaction site formalism (ISF-ORPA). This method does not include unallowed diagrammatic contributions to the structure and thermodynamics, in contrast to previous CPTs in the interaction site formalism. We compare the results to computer simulation data and find that the theory gives a realistic representation of the effect of the electrostatic interactions on the structure of the fluid.     

Impurity-induced phase transition in the interacting Bose gas: 1. Analytical results

We derive selfconsistency equations for the density relaxation and the longitudinal dynamical conductivity of the interacting Bose gas at temperature zero moving in a random potential. The equations describe a disorder-induced transition from a superfluid phase to an insulating phase, where the density is non-ergodic. The interaction of the bosons is treated in random phase approximation and the coupling to the impurities is calculated within generalized selfconsistent current relaxation theory. Scaling laws are discussed and explicit results are presented for the repulsive Bosgas with neutral impurities and for the charged Bose gas with charged impurities.     

Hard-sphere-like dynamics in a non-hard-sphere liquid

The collective dynamics of liquid gallium close to the melting point has been studied using inelastic x-ray scattering to probe length scales smaller than the size of the first coordination shell. Although the structural properties of this partially covalent liquid strongly deviate from a simple hard-sphere model, the dynamics, as reflected in the quasielastic scattering, are beautifully described within the framework of the extended heat mode approximation of Enskog's kinetic theory, analytically derived for a hard-sphere system. The present work demonstrates, therefore, the applicability of Enskog's theory beyond simple liquids.     

Equation of state and liquid–vapour equilibrium in a triangle-well fluid

The second-order thermodynamic perturbation theory formulation of Barker and Henderson is used to derive the equation of state of the triangle-well fluid. This is combined with the rational function approximation to the radial distribution function of the hard-sphere fluid. Results are obtained for the critical parameters and the liquid–vapour coexistence curve for various values of the range of the potential. A comparison with available simulation data is presented.     

An improved way of minimizing free energy in the variational method with the square well reference system

For the variational method of the thermodynamic perturbation theory with the square well reference system to which the semianalytical way of solving the mean spherical approximation is applied, a new way of minimizing the free energy is proposed. The approach is applied to liquid sodium and potassium, the effective pair interaction in which is described within the framework of the pseudopotential theory. For each of the metals under study, the global minimum of the free energy was found as a function of two independent variables (the hard core diameter and the mean atomic volume). In this minimum, a better agreement between the calculation results and the experimental data is obtained than when using the hard sphere reference system.