Role of interactions of triplets of atoms in the formation of elastic properties of cubic crystals

It is widely known that the interaction of triplets of particles (which are not reducible to the sum of pair interactions) play an important role in formation the nonlinear and anisotropic properties of crystals. The aim of this work is to establish a general form of the dependence of these properties on interactions of triplets of atoms that is dependent only on the structure of the crystals. To separate the interactions of triplets of atoms from those of quadruples, we assume that the energy of triplets of interacting atoms depends only on the characteristics of a triangle whose vertices are the centers of gravity of interacting atoms. In this model, the internal energy must therefore be invariant upon rearrangement of the numbers of interacting atoms and any rotation of the triangle in isotropic space, P(3) × O(3). To specify the form of energy dependence on characteristics of selected triangles, we constructed an integral rational basis of invariants in dependence on the components of the vectors connecting the vertices of each triangle. Using the example of a simple dependence of the energy on basic invariants, we show how to move from the assumed energy dependence on invariants to the dependence of energy on lattice sums.