Many-body and quantum effects in the surface tension and surface energy of liquid neon and argon using the Fowler’s approximation

Abstract

The Fowler’s expression for calculation of the reduced surface tension and surface energy has been used with Lennard–Jones (LJ) and two-body Hartree–Fock dispersion (HFD)-like potentials for neon and argon, respectively. The required radial distribution functions (RDFs) have been used from two recently determined expressions in the literature and a new equation proposed in this work. Quantum corrections for neon system have been considered using the Feynman–Hibbs (FH) and Wigner–Kirkwood (WK) approaches. To take many-body forces into account for argon system, the simple three-body potentials of Wang and Sadus (2006) [33] and Hauschild and Prausnitz (1993) [30] used with the HFD-like potential without requiring an expensive three-body calculation. The results show that the quantum and three-body effects improve the prediction of the surface tension of liquid neon and argon using the Fowler’s expression.