Free energy harmonic crystal

Just as the perturbation theory described in the previous section, the self-consistent phonon (SCP) method applies only in the case of small oscillations around some equilibrium configuration. The SCP method was originally formulated (Werthamer, 1976) for atomic, rare gas, crystals. It can be directly applied to the translational vibrations in molecular crystals and, with some modification, to the librations. The essential idea is to look for an effective harmonic Hamiltonian H0, which approximates the exact crystal Hamiltonian as closely as possible, in the sense that it minimizes the free energy Avar. This minimization rests on the thermodynamic variation principle ... 

In light of our observations from above, namely that the vibrational contribution to the energy of the crystal may be written as a sum of independent harmonic oscillators, this result for the Helmholtz free energy may be immediately generalized. In particular, we note that once the vibrational density of states has been determined... 

As noted earlier, this approach assumes the quasi-harmonic approximation which includes important anharmonic effects associated with the variation of free energy with volume (extrinsic anharmonicity). It does, however, neglect intrinsic anharmonicity which becomes important at elevated temperatures. To investigate crystals at high temperatures Molecular Dynamics (MD) can be used in which intrinsic anharmonic effects are treated explicitly. This method is considered in detail in Chapter 4. 

It is possible to calculate derivatives of the free energy directly in a simulation, and thereby determine free energy differences by thermod5mamic integration over a range of state points between the state of interest and one for which we know A exactly (the ideal gas, or harmonic crystal for example) ... 

For the description of the temperature and stress-related behavior of the crystal we used the method of consistent quasi-harmonic lattice dynamics (CLD), which permits the determination of the equilibrium crystal structure of minimum free energy. The techniques of lattice dynamics are well developed, and an explanation of CLD and its application to the calculation of the minimum free-energy crystal structure and properties of poly(ethylene) has already been presented. ... 

Another technique to obtain the effects of the anharmonic terms on the excitation frequencies and the properties of molecular crystals is the Self-Consistent Phonon (SCP) method [71]. This method is based on the thermodynamic variation principle, Eq. (14), for the exact Hamiltonian given in Eq. (10), with the internal coordinates not explicitly considered. As the approximate Hamiltonian one takes the harmonic Hamiltonian of Eq. (18). The force constants in Eq. (18) are not calculated at the equilibrium positions and orientations of the molecules as in Eq. (19), however. Instead, they are considered as variational parameters, to be optimized by minimization of the Helmholtz free energy according to Eq. (14). The optimized force constants are found to be the thermodynamic (and thus temperature dependent) averages of the second derivatives of the potential over the (harmonic) lattice vibrations ... 

In Chap.5, anharmonic effects are considered. After an illustration of anharmonicity with the help of the diatomic molecule, we derive the free energy of the anharmonic linear chain and discuss the equation of state and the specific heat. The quasi-harmonic approximation" worked out in detail for the linear chain is then applied to three-dimensional crystals to obtain the equation of state and thermal expansion. The self-consistent harmonic approximation" is the basis for treating the effects of strong anharmonicity. At the end of this chapter we give a qualitative discussion of the response... 

The crystal field interaction can be treated approximately as a point charge perturbation on the free-ion energy states, which have eigenfunctions constructed with the spherical harmonic functions, therefore, the effective operators of crystal field interaction may be defined with the tensor operators of the spherical harmonics Ck). Following Wyboume s formalism (Wyboume, 1965), the crystal field potential may be defined by ... 

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