Branching points in the low-temperature dipolar hard sphere fluid
- Author(s)
- Lorenzo Rovigatti, Sofia Kantorovich, Alexey O. Ivanov, Jose Maria Tavares, Francesco Sciortino
- Abstract
In this contribution, we investigate the low-temperature, low-density behaviour of dipolar hard-sphere (DHS) particles, i.e., hard spheres with dipoles embedded in their centre. We aim at describing the DHS fluid in terms of a network of chains and rings (the fundamental clusters) held together by branching points (defects) of different nature. We first introduce a systematic way of classifying inter-cluster connections according to their topology, and then employ this classification to analyse the geometric and thermodynamic properties of each class of defects, as extracted from state-of-the-art equilibrium Monte Carlo simulations. By computing the average density and energetic cost of each defect class, we find that the relevant contribution to inter-cluster interactions is indeed provided by (rare) three-way junctions and by four-way junctions arising from parallel or anti-parallel locally linear aggregates. All other (numerous) defects are either intra-cluster or associated to low cluster-cluster interaction energies, suggesting that these defects do not play a significant part in the thermodynamic description of the self-assembly processes of dipolar hard spheres.
- Organisation(s)
- Computational and Soft Matter Physics
- External organisation(s)
- Sapienza University of Rome, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Ural Federal University
- Journal
- Journal of Chemical Physics
- Volume
- 139
- No. of pages
- 9
- ISSN
- 0021-9606
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4821935
- Publication date
- 10-2013
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103023 Polymer physics, 103017 Magnetism, 103029 Statistical physics
- Keywords
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/6a57cf44-10f0-40d1-a96c-51c42cdd478e