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Departmental Colloquium

Title
Computer Simulations of Critical Phenomena and Phase Behavior of Fluids  
Guest Speaker
Dr. Kurt Binder  
Guest Affiliation
Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz and The Univeristy of Georgia, Department of Physics and Astronomy  
Host
Dr. David Landau  
When
Thursday, February 24, 2011 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm  
Location
Physics 202  
Details

Computer simulation techniques such as Monte Carlo (MC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) methods yield numerically exact information (apart from statistical errors) on model systems of classical statistical mechanics. However, a systematic limitation is the restriction to a finite (and often rather small) particle number N (or box linear dimension L, respectively). This limitation is particularly restrictive near critical points (due to the divergence of the correlation length of the order parameter) and for the study of phase equilibria (possibly involving interfaces, droplets, etc.). Starting out with simple lattice gas (Ising) models, finite size scaling analysis have been developed to overcome this limitation. These techniques work for both simple Lennard-Jones fluids and their mixtures, including generalizations to
approximate models for quadrupolar fluids such as carbon dioxide, benzene etc. and various mixtures, whose phase behaviour can be predicted. A combination of MC and MD allows the study of dynamic critical phenomena, and specialised techniques (umbrella sampling plus
thermodynamic integration) yield the surface free energy of droplets as function of droplet size. Thus, computer simulation has become a versatile and widely applicable tool for the study of fluids.

 

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