Liquids classical statistical mechanics approach

The Classical Statistical Mechanics Approach to Liquid Structure... 

All three areas will be addressed here. The application of classical density functional theory has led to some of the most important recent theoretical advances in SFE and these have been the subject of several authoritative review articles [10-16]. On the other hand, we know of no recent comprehensive review addressing theoretical approaches other than density functional theories (DFT) and the other two subject areas, particularly the last one, and it was this that motivated us to write this chapter. We hope that the somewhat broader coverage of molecular modeling research in SFE given in this chapter will be of benefit to researchers new to the field. We should mention that this Chapter is written from a perspective that is more strongly influenced by liquid-state statistical mechanics than by solid-state theory. The interests of the authors in the problem at hand are an outgrowth of their previous work on phase equilibrium in fluids and fluid mixtures. 

The properties of the metal phase have been successfully described by rather simple models, most notably the jelliiun model. In many theoretical treatments of the liquid/metal interface, the hquid electrolyte in contact with the metal has been described, to first order, as an external field, acting on the jellium model (see Ref. 13 and references therein). In many simulation studies, the reverse approach is taken. The focus is on the description of the liquid phase and the effect of the metal on the aqueous phase is approximated, to first order, by an external potential acting on the ions and molecules in the liquid phase. This is done within the framework of classical mechanics and classical statistical mechanics. The models for the interparticle interactions will consist of distributed point charges in combination with soft interatomic repulsions and dispersive attractions. Some of the models can also be considered chemical models they can be regarded as a first step towards electrochemical modeling, very much in the spirit of molecular modeling . 

Computer simulation methods for studying liquid-liquid interfaces are exactly the same as those applied to investigate bulk solutions. In molecular-level, statistical-mechanical approaches, molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods are used. Classical molecular dynamics simulations require solving the equations of motion of the system as a function of time. The thermal and structural properties of the system are calculated as time averages along the generated sequence of... 

There are two basic approaches to the computer simulation of liquid crystals, the Monte Carlo method and the method known as molecular dynamics. We will first discuss the basis of the Monte Carlo method. As is the case with both these methods, a small number (of the order hundreds) of molecules is considered and the difficulties introduced by this restriction are, at least in part, removed by the use of artful boundary conditions which will be discussed below. This relatively small assembly of molecules is treated by a method based on the canonical partition function approach. That is to say, the energy which appears in the Boltzman factor is the total energy of the assembly and such factors are assumed summed over an ensemble of assemblies. The summation ranges over all the coordinates and momenta which describe the assemblies. As a classical approach is taken to the problem, the summation is replaced by an integration over all these coordinates though, in the final computation, a return to a summation has to be made. If one wishes to find the probable value of some particular physical quantity, A, which is a function of the coordinates just referred to, then statistical mechanics teaches that this quantity is given by... 

The discussion in this chapter has focused on the properties of liquids at interfaces. A related area of contemporary research is the study of solid gas interface. The solid surface is quite different in that atomic or molecular components of a solid are relatively motionless compared to those of liquid. For this reason it is easier to define a plane associated with a well-defined solid surface. The approach to studying adsorption on solids has been more molecular with the development of sophisticated statistical mechanical models. On the other hand, the study of liquid I gas and liquid liquid interfaces has been much more macroscopic in approach with a firm connection to classical thermodynamics. As the understanding of liquids has improved at the molecular level using contemporary statistical mechanical tools, these methods are being applied now to fluids at interfaces. 

The fundamental problem in classical equilibrium statistical mechanics is to evaluate the partition function. Once this is done, we can calculate all the thermodynamic quantities, as these are typically first and second partial derivatives of the partition function. Except for very simple model systems, this is an unsolved problem. In the theory of gases and liquids, the partition function is rarely mentioned. The reason for this is that the evaluation of the partition function can be replaced by the evaluation of the grand canonical correlation functions. Using this approach, and the assumption that the potential energy of the system can be written as a sum of pair potentials, the evaluation of the partition function is equivalent to the calculation of... 

From a strictly logical viewpoint, one should approach liquids from quantum statistical mechanics however, with a few important exceptions, the collective chemical physics aspects of liquids is described quite well by many-body classical mechanics, and this is the approach taken here. 

Statistical mechanics can be based on classical mechanics instead of on quantum mechanics, and this approach is useful in the discussion of nonideal gases and liquids. 

As one would expect, developments in the theory of such phenomena have employed chemical models chosen more for analytical simplicity than for any connection to actual chemical reactions. Due to the mechanistic complexity of even the simplest laboratory systems of interest in this study, moreover, application of even approximate methods to more realistic situations is a formidable task. At the same time a detailed microscopic approach to any of the simple chemical models, in terms of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, for example, is also not feasible. As is well known, the method of molecular dynamics discussed in detail already had its origin in a similar situation in the study of classical fluids. Quite recently, the basic MD computer model has been modified to include inelastic or reactive scattering as well as the elastic processes of interest at equilibrium phase transitions (18), and several applications of this "reactive" molecular dynamicriRMD) method to simple chemical models involving chemical instabilities have been reported (L8j , 22J. A variation of the RMD method will be discussed here in an application to a first-order chemical phase transition with many features analogous to those of the vapor-liquid transition treated earlier. 

Two methods are in common use for simulating molecular liquids the Monte Carlo method (MC) and molecular dynamics calculations (MD). Both depend on the availability of reasonably accurate potential energy surfaces and both are based on statistical classical mechanics, taking no account of quantum effects. In the past 10-15 years quantum Monte Carlo methods (QMC) have been developed that allow intramolecular degrees of freedom to be studied, but because of the computational complexity of this approach results have only been reported for water clusters. 

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