Abstract
We present a detailed study of the validity of the slowly varying density approximation tocalculate the surface tension and the surface energy of Lennard-Jones fluids. To do so, weconsider three explicit analytical expressions for the radial distribution function of theliquid phase, including one proposed by our research group, together with veryaccurate expressions for the liquid and vapour densities, also proposed by ourselves.The calculation of the surface tension from the direct correlation function usingthe Percus–Yevick and the hypernetted-chain approximations is also considered.Finally, our results are compared with those obtained by other authors by computersimulation, and also with those estimated via the general expressions (i.e., not in theambit of the approximation studied here). We demonstrate that although theslowly varying density approximation is in good agreement with more complexexpressions near the critical point, it is not adequate to calculate the surfaceenergy and the surface tension of Lennard-Jones fluids at every temperature.
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