Dissipative particle dynamics for interacting systems

We introduce a dissipative particle dynamics scheme for the dynamics of non-ideal fluids. Given a free-energy density that determines the thermodynamics of the system, we derive consistent conservative forces. The use of these effective, density dependent forces reduces the local structure as compared to previously proposed models. This is an important feature in mesoscopic modeling, since it ensures a realistic length and time scale separation in coarse-grained models. We consider in detail the behavior of a van der Waals fluid and a binary mixture with a miscibility gap. We discuss the physical implications of having a single length scale characterizing the interaction range, in particular for the interfacial properties.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure

Gas-solid coexistence of adhesive spheres

In this note we investigate using basic free energy considerations the location of the gas-liquid critical point with respect to solidification for narrow attractive interactions down to the Baxter limit. Possible experimental and simulation realizations leading to a stable critical point are briefly discussed.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, submitte

Replica exchange Monte Carlo applied to Hard Spheres

In this work a replica exchange Monte Carlo scheme which considers an extended isobaric-isothermal ensemble with respect to pressure is applied to study hard spheres (HS). The idea behind the proposal is expanding volume instead of increasing temperature to let crowded systems characterized by dominant repulsive interactions to unblock, and so, to produce sampling from disjoint configurations. The method produces, in a single parallel run, the complete HS equation of state. Thus, the first order fluid-solid transition is captured. The obtained results well agree with previous calculations. This approach seems particularly useful to treat purely entropy-driven systems such as hard body and non-additive hard mixtures, where temperature plays a trivial role

Efficient configurational-bias Monte-Carlo simulations of chain molecules with `swarms' of trial configurations

Proposed here is a dynamic Monte-Carlo algorithm that is efficient in simulating dense systems of long flexible chain molecules. It expands on the configurational-bias Monte-Carlo method through the simultaneous generation of a large set of trial configurations. This process is directed by attempting to terminate unfinished chains with a low statistical weight, and replacing these chains with clones (enrichments) of stronger chains. The efficiency of the resulting method is explored by simulating dense polymer brushes. A gain in efficiency of at least three orders of magnitude is observed with respect to the configurational-bias approach, and almost one order of magnitude with respect to recoil-growth Monte-Carlo. Furthermore, the inclusion of `waste recycling' is observed to be a powerful method for extracting meaningful statistics from the discarded configurations

Inferring bulk self-assembly properties from simulations of small systems with multiple constituent species and small systems in the grand canonical ensemble

In this paper we generalize a methodology [T. E. Ouldridge, A. A. Louis, and J. P. K. Doye, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter {\bf 22}, 104102 (2010)] for dealing with the inference of bulk properties from small simulations of self-assembling systems of characteristic finite size. In particular, schemes for extrapolating the results of simulations of a single self-assembling object to the bulk limit are established in three cases: for assembly involving multiple particle species, for systems with one species localized in space and for simulations in the grand canonical ensemble. Furthermore, methodologies are introduced for evaluating the accuracy of these extrapolations. Example systems demonstrate that differences in cluster concentrations between simulations of a single self-assembling structure and bulk studies of the same model under identical conditions can be large, and that convergence on bulk results as system size is increased can be slow and non-trivial.Comment: Accepted by J. Chem. Phy

Rate of Homogeneous Crystal Nucleation in molten NaCl

We report a numerical simulation of the rate of crystal nucleation of sodium chloride from its melt at moderate supercooling. In this regime nucleation is too slow to be studied with "brute-force" Molecular Dynamics simulations. The melting temperature of ("Tosi-Fumi") NaCl is $\sim 1060$K. We studied crystal nucleation at $T$=800K and 825K. We observe that the critical nucleus formed during the nucleation process has the crystal structure of bulk NaCl. Interestingly, the critical nucleus is clearly faceted: the nuclei have a cubical shape. We have computed the crystal-nucleation rate using two completely different approaches, one based on an estimate of the rate of diffusive crossing of the nucleation barrier, the other based on the Forward Flux Sampling and Transition Interface Sampling (FFS-TIS) methods. We find that the two methods yield the same result to within an order of magnitude. However, when we compare the extrapolated simulation data with the only available experimental results for NaCl nucleation, we observe a discrepancy of nearly 5 orders of magnitude. We discuss the possible causes for this discrepancy