CAPILLARY WAVES AND SHAPES OF LIQUID CLUSTERS

In molecular dynamics simulations of the structures and dynamic proper ties of liquid clusters containing a few hundred molecules, it has bee n found that the microdrops are often markedly deformed from spherical shapes. It is shown that the deformations can be accounted for by cap illary waves, a treatment of which is developed in the paper. As well as describing shapes of microdrops, the results imply that shapes of c ritical nuclei in phase transitions can be expected to be highly irreg ular instead of the idealized spheres they are usually assumed to be i n nucleation theory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.