Melting of palladium clusters – density of states determination by Monte Carlo simulation

The density of states (DOS) has been calculated for the metal clusters Pd₁₃, Pd₅₅ and Pd₁₄₇ using the recently proposed reference system equilibration (RSE) method. The interaction within the clusters was described by a many-body alloy potential. Using this DOS, the caloric curve of Pd₁₃ has been calculated and excellent agreement with canonical Monte Carlo simulations is obtained. For Pd₅₅ and Pd₁₄₇, the solid and one molten isomers have been isolated in order to calculate the DOS for the isomers separately. The melting of the clusters occurs when the DOS for the solid and the molten isomers are equal. Comparison with previous microcanonical Monte Carlo simulations shows that the number of statistically equivalent molten isomers are 1.1×10¹⁸ for Pd₅₅ and 4.1×10⁴¹ for Pd₁₄₇.