We present a tethered Monte Carlo simulation of the crystallization of hard spheres. Our method boosts the traditional umbrella sampling to the point of making practical the study of constrained Gibb's free energies depending on several crystalline order-parameters. We obtain high-accuracy estimates of the fluid-crystal coexistence pressure for up to 2916 particles (enough to accommodate fluid-solid interfaces). We are able to extrapolate to infinite volume the coexistence pressure (p_{co}=11.5727(10) k_B T/\sigma^3) and the interfacial free energy (\gamma_{100}=0.636(11) k_B T/\sigma^2).
@article{arxiv.1103.2599,
title = {Equilibrium fluid-solid coexistence of hard spheres},
author = {L. A. Fernandez and V. Martin-Mayor and B. Seoane and P. Verrocchio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1103.2599},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 pdf figures. Version to be published in PRL. Appendices contain Supplemental Material