English

Asymptotic decay of pair correlations in a Yukawa fluid

Soft Condensed Matter 2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We analyse the rr \to \infty asymptotic decay of the total correlation function, h(r)h(r), for a fluid composed of particles interacting via a (point) Yukawa pair potential. Such a potential provides a simple model for dusty plasmas. The asymptotic decay is determined by the poles of the liquid structure factor in the complex plane. We use the hypernetted-chain closure to the Ornstein-Zernike equation to determine the line in the phase diagram, well-removed from the freezing transition line, where crossover occurs in the ultimate decay of h(r)h(r), from monotonic to damped oscillatory. We show: i) crossover takes place via the same mechanism (coalescence of imaginary poles) as in the classical one-component plasma and in other models of Coulomb fluids and ii) leading-order pole contributions provide an accurate description of h(r)h(r) at intermediate distances rr as well as at long range.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0512391,
  title  = {Asymptotic decay of pair correlations in a Yukawa fluid},
  author = {P. Hopkins and A. J. Archer and R. Evans},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0512391},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

5 pages, 3 figures