Non-hydrodynamic transverse collective excitations in hard-sphere fluids.

Abstract

Collective excitations in hard-sphere fluids were studied in a wide range of wave numbers and packing fractions η by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We report the observation of non-hydrodynamic transverse excitations for packing fractions η≥0.395 in the shape of transverse current spectral functions. Dispersion of longitudinal excitations in the whole range of packing fractions shows a negative deviation from the linear hydrodynamic law with increasing wave numbers even for dense hard-sphere fluids where the transverse excitations were observed. These results do not support a recent proposal within the "Frenkel line" approach that the positive sound dispersion in liquids is defined by transverse excitations. We report calculations of the cutoff "Frenkel frequencies" for transverse excitations in hard-sphere fluids and discuss their consistency with the estimated dispersions of shear waves.