STATIC AND DYNAMIC STRUCTURE OF LIQUID-METALS - ROLE OF THE DIFFERENTPARTS OF THE INTERACTION POTENTIAL

The influence of different parts of the interaction potential on the m icroscopic behavior of simple liquid metals is investigated by molecul ar dynamics simulation. The role of the soft-core repulsive, short-ran ge attractive, and long-range oscillatory forces on the properties of liquid lithium close to the triple point is analyzed by comparing the results from simulations of identical systems but truncating the poten tial at different distances. Special attention is paid to dynamic coll ective properties such as the dynamic structure factors, transverse cu rrent correlation functions, and transport coefficients. It is observe d that, in general, the effects of the short-range attractive forces a re important. On the contrary, the influence of the oscillatory long-r ange interactions is considerably less, being the most pronounced for the dynamic structure factor at long wavelengths. The results of this work suggest that the influence of the attractive forces becomes less significant when temperature and density increase.