Soft sphere potential

The soft sphere potential is defined as

$\Phi _{12}\left(r\right)=\left\{{\begin{array}{lll}\epsilon \left({\frac {\sigma }{r}}\right)^{n}&;&r\leq \sigma \\0&;&r>\sigma \end{array}}\right.$

where $\Phi _{12}\left(r\right)$ is the intermolecular pair potential between two soft spheres separated by a distance $r:=|\mathbf {r} _{1}-\mathbf {r} _{2}|$, Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \epsilon } is the interaction strength and Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \sigma } is the diameter of the sphere. Frequently the value of Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n} is taken to be 12, thus the model effectively becomes the high temperature limit of the Lennard-Jones model . If Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n\rightarrow \infty} one has the hard sphere model. For Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n \le 3} no thermodynamically stable phases are found.

Equation of state

The soft-sphere equation of state has recently been studied by Tan, Schultz and Kofke and expressed in terms of Padé approximants. For Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle k_BT/\epsilon=1.0} and Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n=6} one has (Eq. 8):

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle Z_{n=6} = \frac{1 + 7.432255 \rho + 23.854807 \rho^2 + 40.330195 \rho^3 + 34.393896 \rho^4 + 10.723480 \rho^5}{1+ 3.720037 \rho + 4.493218 \rho^2 + 1.554135 \rho^3}}

and for Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n=9} one has (Eq. 9):

Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle Z_{n=9} = \frac{1 + 3.098829 \rho + 5.188915 \rho^2 + 5.019851 \rho^3 + 2.673385 \rho^4 + 0.601529 \rho^5}{1+ 0.262771 \rho + 0.168052 \rho^2 - 0.010554 \rho^3}}

Virial coefficients

Tan, Schultz and Kofke have calculated the virial coefficients at Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle k_BT/\epsilon=1.0} (Table 1):

	n=12	n=9	n=6
$B_{3}$	3.79106644	4.27563423	5.55199919
Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle B_4}	3.52761(6)	3.43029(7)	1.44261(4)
Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle B_5}	2.1149(2)	1.08341(7)	-1.68834(9)
Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle B_6}	0.7695(2)	-0.21449(11)	1.8935(5)
Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle B_7}	0.0908(5)	-0.0895(7)	-1.700(3)
$B_{8}$	-0.074(2)	0.071(4)	0.44(2)

Melting point

For Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n=12}

pressure	Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \rho_{\mathrm {melting}}}	Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \rho_{\mathrm {freezing}}}	Reference
22.66(1)	1.195(6)	1.152(6)	Table 1
23.24(4)	1.2035(6)	1.1602(7)	Table 2

For Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n=9}

pressure	$\rho _{\mathrm {melting} }$	Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \rho_{\mathrm {freezing}}}	Reference
36.36(10)	1.4406(12)	1.4053(14)	Table 3

For Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle n=6}

pressure	Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \rho_{\mathrm {melting}}}	Failed to parse (SVG (MathML can be enabled via browser plugin): Invalid response ("Math extension cannot connect to Restbase.") from server "https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_v1/":): {\displaystyle \rho_{\mathrm {freezing}}}	Reference
100.1(3)	2.320(2)	2.295(2)	Table 4