Many-body interactions in rare gases: Krypton and xenon

Signature properties of water: Their molecular electronic origins

Water challenges our fundamental understanding of emergent materials properties from a molecular perspective. It exhibits a uniquely rich phenomenology including dramatic variations in behavior over the wide temperature range of the liquid into water's crystalline phases and amorphous states. We show that many-body responses arising from water's electronic structure are essential mechanisms harnessed by the molecule to encode for the distinguishing features of its condensed states. We treat the complete set of these many-body responses nonperturbatively within a coarse-grained electronic structure derived exclusively from single-molecule properties. Such a "strong coupling" approach generates interaction terms of all symmetries to all orders, thereby enabling unique transferability to diverse local environments such as those encountered along the coexistence curve. The symmetries of local motifs that can potentially emerge are not known a priori. Consequently, electronic responses unfiltered by artificial truncation are then required to embody the terms that tip the balance to the correct set of structures. Therefore, our fully responsive molecular model produces, a simple, accurate, and intuitive picture of water's complexity and its molecular origin, predicting water's signature physical properties from ice, through liquid-vapor coexistence, to the critical point.

Three-body critical Casimir forces

Within mean-field theory we calculate universal scaling functions associated with critical Casimir forces for a system consisting of three parallel cylindrical colloids immersed in a near-critical binary liquid mixture. For several geometrical arrangements and boundary conditions at the surfaces of the colloids we study the force between two colloidal particles in the direction normal to their axes, analyzing the influence of the presence of a third particle on that force. Upon changing temperature or the relative positions of the particles we observe interesting features such as a change of sign of this force caused by the presence of the third particle. We determine the three-body component of the forces acting on one of the colloids by subtracting the pairwise forces from the total force. The three-body contribution to the total critical Casimir force turns out to be more pronounced for small surface-to-surface distances between the colloids as well as for temperatures close to criticality. Moreover, we compare our results with similar ones for other physical systems such as three atoms interacting via van der Waals forces.

Many-body effects for critical Casimir forces

Within mean-field theory we calculate the scaling functions associated with critical Casimir forces for a system consisting of two spherical colloids immersed in a binary liquid mixture near its consolute point and facing a planar, homogeneous substrate. For several geometrical arrangements and boundary conditions we analyze the normal and the lateral critical Casimir forces acting on one of the two colloids. We find interesting features such as a change of sign of these forces upon varying either the position of one of the colloids or the temperature. By subtracting the pairwise forces from the total force we are able to determine the many-body forces acting on one of the colloids. We have found that the many-body contribution to the total critical Casimir force is more pronounced for small colloid-colloid and colloid-substrate distances, as well as for temperatures close to criticality, where the many-body contribution to the total force can reach up to 25%.

Thermodynamic properties and static structure factor for a Yukawa fluid in the mean spherical approximation

This work presents the full analytic expressions for the thermodynamic properties and the static structure factor for a hard sphere plus 1-Yukawa fluid within the mean spherical approximation. To obtain these properties of the fluid type Yukawa analytically it was necessary to solve an equation of fourth order for the scaling parameter on a large scale. The physical root of this equation was determined by imposing physical conditions. The results of this work are obtained from seminal papers of Blum and Høye. We show that is not necessary the use the series expansion to solve the equation for the scaling parameter. We applied our theoretical result to find the thermodynamic and the static structure factor for krypton. Our results are in good agreement with those obtained in an experimental form or by simulation using the Monte Carlo method.

Simple phenomenological model for phase transitions in confined geometry. 2. Capillary condensation/evaporation in cylindrical mesopores

A simple phenomenological model that describes capillary condensation and evaporation of pure fluids confined in cylindrical mesopores is presented. Following the work of Celestini (Celestini, F. Phys. Lett. A 1997, 228, 84), the free energy density of the system is derived using interfacial tensions and a corrective term that accounts for the interaction coupling between the vapor/adsorbed liquid and the adsorbed liquid/adsorbent interfaces. This corrective term is shown to be consistent with the Gibbs adsorption isotherm and assessed by standard adsorption tests. This model reveals that capillary condensation and evaporation are metastable and equilibrium processes, respectively, hence exhibiting the existence of a hysteresis loop inadsorption/desorption isotherm that is well-known in experiment. We extend the phenomenological model of Celestini to give a quantitative description of adsorption on the pore wall and hysteresis width evolution with temperature and confinement. Direct quantitative comparison is made with experimental data for confined argon. Used as a characterizing tool, this integrated model allows in a single fit of an experimental adsorption/desorption isotherm assessing essential characterization data such as the specific surface area, pore volume, and mean pore size.

Three-body interactions and solid-liquid phase equilibria: application of a molecular dynamics algorithm

The effect of three-body interactions on the solid-liquid phase boundaries of argon, krypton, and xenon is investigated via a novel technique that combines both nonequilibrium and equilibrium molecular dynamics. The simulations involve the evaluation of two- and three-body forces using accurate two-body and three-body intermolecular potentials. The effect of three-body interactions is to substantially increase the coexistence pressure and to lower the densities of liquid and solid phases. Comparison with experiment indicates that three-body interactions are required to accurately determine the total pressure. In contrast to vapor-liquid phase equilibria, the relative contribution of three-body interactions to the freezing pressure exceeds the contribution of two-body interactions at all temperatures.

Exact results of a generalized Wu model with two- and four-spin interactions

The mixed spin-1/2 and spin-S(B) Ising model with two- and four-spin interactions on the honeycomb lattice is studied by the use of a generalized star-triangle transformation. The exact results for the phase diagrams, magnetization, correlation functions, internal energy, specific heat, and quadrupolar susceptibility are obtained and discussed.

Effects of dispersion forces on the structure and thermodynamics of fluid krypton

Semianalytical and numerical calculations are performed to predict the structural and thermodynamic properties of low-density Kr fluid. Assuming that the interatomic forces can be modelled by a pairwise potential plus the three-body Axilrod-Teller potential, two different routes are explored. The first one is based on the hybridized mean spherical approximation integral equation of the theory of liquids and the second one uses large-scale molecular dynamics (MD). Algorithms for MD simulation are constructed on parallel machines to reduce the amount of computer time induced by the calculations of the three-body forces and the pair-correlation function. Our results obtained with the two methods mentioned above are in quite good agreement with the recent small-angle neutron-scattering experiments [Formisano et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 221 (1997); Benmore et al., J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 11, 3091 (1999)]. Moreover, the reliability of the asymptotic form of the integral equation is assessed for the specific case of dispersion forces including the three-body contributions, by an analysis at low wave vector and low density. It is seen that the effects of the Axilrod-Teller triple-dipole potential cannot be ignored to describe the structure and the thermodynamic properties of fluid krypton even at low density.