Statistical-mechanical approximation

Outer-sphere reactions occur with minimal electronic interaction through space. Their rates can be predicted by a classical statistical-mechanical approximation (see 12.2.3). Insuring a minimum of electronic interaction between the reagents often re-... 

Loufakis K, Wunderiich B The computation of heat capacities and transition parameters of liquid macromolecules based on a statistical mechanical approximation. J. Phys. Chem., to be published Vol. 92(3), 1988... 

As compared to the MSA, better statistical mechanical approximations exist, such as the HNC equation and its improvements [17]. However, these equations need be solved numerically for every individual system, and it is sometimes very difficult to achieve convergence of the numerical algorithm. 

The reduction of thread PRISM with the R-MMSA closure for the idealized fully symmetric block copolymer problem to the well-known incompressible RPA approach " is reassuring. However, in contrast with the blend case, for copolymers that tend to microphase separate on a finite length scale, the existence of critical or spinodal instabilities is expected to be an artifact of the crude statistical mechanical approximations. That is, finite N fluctuation effects are expected to destroy all such spinodal divergences and result in only first-order phase transitions in block copolymers [i.e., Eq. (7.3) is never satisfied]. Indeed, when PRISM theory is numerically implemented for finite thickness chain models using the R-MMSA or R-MPY/HTA closures spinodal divergences do not occur. Thus, one learns that even within the simpler molecular closures, the finite hard-core excluded volume constraint results in a fluctuation effect that destroys the mean-field divergences. 

Over the past several years, we and our collaborators have constructed and applied several approaches that vary greatly in both computational convenience and level of statistical mechanical approximation. These various approaches often have distinct (and often limited) regimes of applicability and level of accuracy. Here we sketch the essential physical features and statistical mechanical approximations of the different numerical approaches. 

The closure approximation is the fundamental statistical mechanical approximation in PRISM theory. Determining the appropriate closure depends on the form of the potentials as well as the system parameters such as temperature and pressure [6]. The standard Percus-Yevick (PY) closure has been found to work well for repulsive force potentials in small molecule and macromolecular systems. The PY closure for atomic liquids can be derived using Percus method [79, 80] of a perturbative expansion of the density functional or by Stell s [8] graph summation method. The pair and direct correlation functions in PY theory are given by... 

E-An Zen [1967] has suggested a first-order statistical mechanical approximation to a muscovite-montmorillonite mixed-layer clay, based on assumed interaction energies between like and unlike layers. From this, the equilibrium numbers of AB, AA, and BB contracts are determined. Computer calculations of diffraction pattern based on various proportions of A and B layers and on the above assumptions are being made. 

There is, of course, a mass of rather direct evidence on orientation at the liquid-vapor interface, much of which is at least implicit in this chapter and in Chapter IV. The methods of statistical mechanics are applicable to the calculation of surface orientation of assymmetric molecules, usually by introducing an angular dependence to the inter-molecular potential function (see Refs. 67, 68, 77 as examples). Widom has applied a mean-held approximation to a lattice model to predict the tendency of AB molecules to adsorb and orient perpendicular to the interface between phases of AA and BB [78]. In the case of water, a molecular dynamics calculation concluded that the surface dipole density corresponded to a tendency for surface-OH groups to point toward the vapor phase [79]. 

Cummings P T and Stell G 1984 Statistical mechanical models of chemical reactions analytic solution of models of A + S AS in the Percus-Yevick approximation Mol. Phys. 51 253... 

Chandler D 1978 Statistical mechanics of isomerization dynamics in liquids and the transition state approximation J. Chem. Phys. 68 2959... 

This is connnonly known as the transition state theory approximation to the rate constant. Note that all one needs to do to evaluate (A3.11.187) is to detennine the partition function of the reagents and transition state, which is a problem in statistical mechanics rather than dynamics. This makes transition state theory a very usefiil approach for many applications. However, what is left out are two potentially important effects, tiiimelling and barrier recrossing, bodi of which lead to CRTs that differ from the sum of step frmctions assumed in (A3.11.1831. 

If one is only interested in the properties of the interface on scales much larger than the width of the intrinsic profiles, the interface can be approximated by an infinitely thin sheet and the properties of the intrinsic profiles can be cast into a few effective parameters. Using only the local position of the interface, effective interface Hamiltonians describe the statistical mechanics of fluctuating interfaces and membranes. 

A statistical mechanical fonnulation of implicit solvent representations provides a robust theoretical framework for understanding the influence of solvation biomolecular systems. A decomposition of the free energy in tenns of nonpolar and electrostatic contributions, AVF = AVF " + AVF ° , is central to many approximate treatments. An attractive and widely used treatment consists in representing the nonpolar contribution AVF " by a SASA surface tension term with Eq. (15) and the electrostatic contribution by using the... 

It is possible to go beyond the SASA/PB approximation and develop better approximations to current implicit solvent representations with sophisticated statistical mechanical models based on distribution functions or integral equations (see Section V.A). An alternative intermediate approach consists in including a small number of explicit solvent molecules near the solute while the influence of the remain bulk solvent molecules is taken into account implicitly (see Section V.B). On the other hand, in some cases it is necessary to use a treatment that is markedly simpler than SASA/PB to carry out extensive conformational searches. In such situations, it possible to use empirical models that describe the entire solvation free energy on the basis of the SASA (see Section V.C). An even simpler class of approximations consists in using infonnation-based potentials constructed to mimic and reproduce the statistical trends observed in macromolecular structures (see Section V.D). Although the microscopic basis of these approximations is not yet formally linked to a statistical mechanical formulation of implicit solvent, full SASA models and empirical information-based potentials may be very effective for particular problems. 

Our second goal is to introduce these simple phenomena in a statistical mechanical scheme such that the calculations keep a transparent significance at each step. Nowadays, the predictions of theoretical approaches depend on approximations of a high level of technicality in the domain of liquid state theory. These approximations seem to have a mathematical rather than... 

In the previous section we saw on an example the main steps of a standard statistical mechanical description of an interface. First, we introduce a Hamiltonian describing the interaction between particles. In principle this Hamiltonian is known from the model introduced at a microscopic level. Then we calculate the free energy and the interfacial structure via some approximations. In principle, this approach requires us to explore the overall phase space which is a manifold of dimension 6N equal to the number of degrees of freedom for the total number of particles, N, in the system. 

We have employed the Bragg-Williams approximation (BWA) to obtain rough estimates of the ordering/segregation critical temperatures. It is well known that the BWA usually overestimates critical temperatures (approximately by 20 %) in comparison with the exact value obtained from Monte Carlo simulations, or by other highly accurate methods of statistical mechanics. This order of accuracy Is nevertheless sufficient for our present purposes. 

For general rules, a first-order statistical approximation for limiting densities Pi t —> oo) can be obtained by a method akin to the mean-field theory in statistical mechanics (more sophisticated approaches will be introduced in chapter 4). 

The basic problem of statistical mechanics is to evaluate the sum-over-states in equation 7.2 and obtain Z and F as functions of T and any other variables (such as external magnetic fields) that might appear in %. Any thermodynamic observable of interest can then be obtained in a straightforward manner from equation 7.5. In practice, however, the sum-over-states often turns out to be prohibitively difficult to evaluate. Instead, the physical system is usually replaced with a simpler model system and/or some simplifying approximations are made so that the sum-over-states can be evaluated directly. 

Husimi, K., Proc. Phys.-Math. Soc. Japan 22, 264, "Some formal properties of the density matrix." Introduction of the concept of reduced density matrix. Statistical-mechanical treatment of the Hartree-Fock approximation at an arbitrary temperature and an alternative method of obtaining the reduced density matrices are discussed. 

The extent of the agreement of the theoretical calculations with the experiments is somewhat unexpected since MSA is an approximate theory and the underlying model is rough. In particular, water is not a system of dipolar hard spheres.281 However, the good agreement is an indication of the utility of recent advances in the application of statistical mechanics to the study of the electric dipole layer at metal electrodes. 

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