2002/06/10 by Kirill Katsov, K. B. Katsov, Katsov, Kirill +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0206162
9 pages, 5 figures; to be published in Journal of Physical Chemistry
arxiv created 2002/06/10 · openalex publication_date 2002/06/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We have developed a new and general theory of nonuniform fluids that naturally incorporates molecular scale information into the classical van der Waals theory of slowly varying interfaces. Here the theory is applied to the liquid-vapor interface of a Lennard-Jones fluid. The method combines a molecular field treatment of the effects of unbalanced attractive forces with a locally optimal use of linear response theory to approximate fluid structure by that of the associated (hard sphere like) reference fluid. Our approach avoids many of the conceptual problems that arise in the classical theory and shows why capillary wave effects are not included in the theory. The general theory and a simplified version gives results for the interface profile and surface tension for states with different temperatures and potential energy cutoffs that compare very favorably with simulation data.