THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF LIQUID LITHIUM

We have studied the structure and dynamics of liquid lithium (pure Li- 7) in a computer experiment: the states (470, 526 and 573 K) correspon d exactly to those investigated recently in neutron scattering experim ents by Verkerk and co-workers. Instead of a potential based on a simp le local pseudopotential which is usually sufficient for the alkali me tals we have used a potential which is based on a non-local OPW-pseudo potential. Both single-particle and collective correlation functions h ave been calculated. For all temperatures we achieve very good agreeme nt for the total dynamic structure factor. Also the diffusion constant , the specific heat at constant volume and the adiabatic velocity of s ound extracted from our data are in good agreement with the experiment ally determined values.