DENSITY-BASED MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY OF MELTING IN A FINITE-SIZED CLUSTER - AL-13

Ab initio molecular dynamical simulations have been performed to inves tigate the phenomenon of melting in a finite-size system, namely an Al -13 cluster. Classical molecular dynamical simulations using Lennard-J ones potentials have shown that a coexistence region, where both solid -like and liquid-like behaviour is observed, exists over a range of to tal energy. Our density functional simulations on a metallic cluster a im at probing this coexistence region. Although our statistics is some what limited, we do find definite signatures of a coexistence region.