Hard spheres attracting

It is clear that the temperature coefficient of Z) from such a model must come mainly from r/. The hard sphere, attractive well model does not have a large enough temperature coefficient. This can be improved, however, with the use of a more realistic potential. 

Fig 3.2 The assumption that two oppositely charged ions are hard spheres, attracting each other until they bump, yields the energy diagram (a) But in fact the ions feel a repulsive force, which increases rapidly as they approach each other, so that the attraction is partly offset by a repulsion before the atoms bump (b) The truth is better represented (c) as the sum of a repulsive energy and an attractive energy, which reaches a minimum at the actual separation of the ions... 

Finally, we obtain the equation of state for interacting hard spheres (attraction... 

Statistical mechanical theory and computer simulations provide a link between the equation of state and the interatomic potential energy functions. A fluid-solid transition at high density has been inferred from computer simulations of hard spheres. A vapour-liquid phase transition also appears when an attractive component is present hr the interatomic potential (e.g. atoms interacting tlirough a Leimard-Jones potential) provided the temperature lies below T, the critical temperature for this transition. This is illustrated in figure A2.3.2 where the critical point is a point of inflexion of tire critical isothemr in the P - Vplane. 

The assumption of Gaussian fluctuations gives the PY approximation for hard sphere fluids and tire MS approximation on addition of an attractive potential. The RISM theory for molecular fluids can also be derived from the same model. 

As the tip is brought towards the surface, there are several forces acting on it. Firstly, there is the spring force due to die cantilever, F, which is given by = -Icz. Secondly, there are the sample forces, which, in the case of AFM, may comprise any number of interactions including (generally attractive) van der Waals forces, chemical bonding interactions, meniscus forces or Bom ( hard-sphere ) repulsion forces. The total force... 

Hard-sphere models lack a characteristic energy scale and, hence, only entropic packing effects can be investigated. A more realistic modelling has to take hard-core-like repulsion at small distances and an attractive interaction at intennediate distances into account. In non-polar liquids the attraction is of the van der Waals type and decays with the sixth power of the interparticle distance r. It can be modelled in the fonn of a Leimard-Jones potential Fj j(r) between segments... 

At finite concentration, tire settling rate is influenced by hydrodynamic interactions between tire particles. For purely repulsive particle interactions, settling is hindered. Attractive interactions encourage particles to settle as a group, which increases tire settling rate. For hard spheres, tire first-order correction to tire Stokes settling rate is given by [33]... 

One should perhaps mention some other closures that are discussed in the literature. One possibility is to combine the PY approximation for the hard core part of the potential and then use the HNC approximation to compute the corrections due to the attractive forces. Such an approach is called the reference hypernetted chain or RHNC approximation [48,49]. Recently, some new closures for a mixture of hard spheres have been proposed. These include one by Rogers and Young [50] (RY) and the Martynov-Sarkisov [51] (MS) closure as modified by Ballone, Pastore, Galli and Gazzillo [52] (BPGG). The RY and MS/BPGG closure relations take the forms... 

Recently, the HAB approach plus the MV closure has been applied both to hard spheres near a single hard wall [24,25] and in a slit formed by two hard walls. Some results [99] for the latter system are compared with simulation results in Fig. 7. The results obtained from the HAB equation with the HNC and PY closures are not very satisfactory. However, if the MV closure is used, the results are quite good. There have been a few apphcations of the HAB equation to inhomogeneous fluids with attractive interactions. The results have not been very good. The fault hes with the closure used and not Eq. (78). A better closure is needed. Perhaps the DHH closure [27,28] would yield good results, but it has never been tried. 

As in previous theoretical studies of the bulk dispersions of hard spheres we observe in Fig. 1(a) that the PMF exhibits oscillations that develop with increasing solvent density. The phase of the oscillations shifts to smaller intercolloidal separations with augmenting solvent density. Depletion-type attraction is observed close to the contact of two colloids. The structural barrier in the PMF for solvent-separated colloids, at the solvent densities in question, is not at cr /2 but at a larger distance between colloids. These general trends are well known in the theory of colloidal systems and do not require additional comments. 

It is now well-established that for atomic fluids, far from the critical point, the atomic organisation is dictated by the repulsive forces while the longer range attractive forces serve to maintain the high density [34]. The investigation of systems of hard spheres can therefore be used as simple models for atomic systems they also serve as a basis for a thermodynamic perturbation analysis to introduce the attractive forces in a van der Waals-like approach [35]. In consequence it is to be expected that the anisotropic repulsive forces would be responsible for the structure of liquid crystal phases and numerous simulation studies of hard objects have been undertaken to explore this possibility [36]. 

In what follows, unless specified otherwise the breaking and joining parameters, Pb and J, will be assigned the neutral values Pb = TO and J = 1.0 appropriate to hard-sphere (billiard ball) collisions. In some cases it will be of interest to depart from this simple model and to alter these values to find the influences of intermolecular attractions and repulsions on the results. 

To compare molecular theoretical and molecular dynamics results, we have chosen the same wall-particle potential but have used the 6 - oo fluid particle potential. Equation 14, Instead of the truncated 6-12 LJ potential. This Is done because the molecular theory Is developed In terms of attractive particles with hard sphere cores. The parameter fi n Equation 8 Is chosen so that the density of the bulk fluid In equilibrium with the pore fluid Is the same, n a = 0.5925, as that In the MD simulations. 

The formation of a 3D lattice does not need any external forces. It is due to van der Waals attraction forces and to repulsive hard-sphere interactions. These forces are isotropic, and the particle arrangement is achieved by increasing the density of the pseudo-crystal, which tends to have a close-packed structure. This imposes the arrangement in a hexagonal network of the monolayer. The growth in 3D could follow either an HC or FCC struc-... 

The second generalization is the reinterpretation of the excluded volume per particle V(). Realizing that only binary collisions are likely in a low-density gas, van der Waals suggested the value Ina /I for hard spheres of diameter a and for particles which were modeled as hard spheres with attractive tails. Thus, for the Lennard-Jones fluid where the pair potential actually is... 

As we have already pointed out, the theoretical basis of free energy calculations were laid a long time ago [1,4,5], but, quite understandably, had to wait for sufficient computational capabilities to be applied to molecular systems of interest to the chemist, the physicist, and the biologist. In the meantime, these calculations were the domain of analytical theories. The most useful in practice were perturbation theories of dense liquids. In the Barker-Henderson theory [13], the reference state was chosen to be a hard-sphere fluid. The subsequent Weeks-Chandler-Andersen theory [14] differed from the Barker-Henderson approach by dividing the intermolecular potential such that its unperturbed and perturbed parts were associated with repulsive and attractive forces, respectively. This division yields slower variation of the perturbation term with intermolecular separation and, consequently, faster convergence of the perturbation series than the division employed by Barker and Henderson. 

The second term in equation (2.55) describes the long range Van der Waals or dispersive (attractive) forces. The first term describes the much shorter range repulsive forces experienced when the electron clouds on two atoms come into contact the repulsion increases rapidly with decreasing distance, with the atoms behaving almost as hard spheres. 

There are several ways of obtaining functionals for nonideal systems. In most cases the free energy functional is expressed as the sum of an ideal gas term, a hard-sphere term, and a term due to attractive forces. Below, I present a scheme by which approximate expression for the free energy functional may be obtained. This approach relies on the relationship between the free energy functional and the direct correlation function. Because the direct correlation functions are defined through functional derivatives of the excess free energy functional, that is,... 

We present an improved model for the flocculation of a dispersion of hard spheres in the presence of non-adsorbing polymer. The pair potential is derived from a recent theory for interacting polymer near a flat surface, and is a function of the depletion thickness. This thickness is of the order of the radius of gyration in dilute polymer solutions but decreases when the coils in solution begin to overlap. Flocculation occurs when the osmotic attraction energy, which is a consequence of the depletion, outweighs the loss in configurational entropy of the dispersed particles. Our analysis differs from that of De Hek and Vrij with respect to the dependence of the depletion thickness on the polymer concentration (i.e., we do not consider the polymer coils to be hard spheres) and to the stability criterion used (binodal, not spinodal phase separation conditions). 

The crucial question is at what value of <)> is the attraction high enough to induce phase separation De Hek and Vrij (6) assume that the critical flocculation concentration is equivalent to the phase separation condition defined by the spinodal point. From the pair potential between two hard spheres in a polymer solution they calculate the second virial coefficient B2 for the particles, and derive from the spinodal condition that if B2 = 1/2 (where is the volume fraction of particles in the dispersion) phase separation occurs. For a system in thermodynamic equilibrium, two phases coexist if the chemical potential of the hard spheres is the same in the dispersion and in the floe phase (i.e., the binodal condition). 

One may wonder to what extent our predictions for hard spheres apply to a system of soft particles in a polymer solution. A definite answer to this question cannot be given at the moment since numerical data for the depletion of free polymer chains in the neighbourhood of a surface with terminally attached chains are not yet available. Some qualitative features for such a system have been discussed using scaling arguments (24). We may expect that the depleted amount of polymer is, at least in some cases, less than near a hard surface, giving rise to weaker attraction. Both the destabilization concentration (J) and the restabilisation concentration (<(> ) could be much lower. Experimental observations support this qualitative conclusion (1-5). 

---