Role of three-body interactions in formation of bulk viscosity in liquid argon

TL;DR

This study investigates how three-body interactions influence the bulk viscosity of liquid argon, showing that including many-body effects yields results closer to experimental data than traditional pairwise models.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant role of three-body interactions in accurately modeling the bulk viscosity of liquid argon, improving upon previous pairwise potential models.

Findings

Three-body interactions increase the accuracy of bulk viscosity predictions.

Green-Kubo calculations with ab initio potentials align better with experimental data.

Many-body effects are crucial for realistic liquid argon simulations.

Abstract

With the aim of locating the origin of discrepancy between experimental and computer simulation results on bulk viscosity of liquid argon, a molecular dynamic simulation of argon interacting via ab initio pair potential and triple-dipole three-body potential has been undertaken. Bulk viscosity, obtained using Green-Kubo formula, is different from the values obtained from modeling argon using Lennard-Jones potential, the former being closer to the experimental data. The conclusion is made that many-body inter-atomic interaction plays a significant role in formation of bulk viscosity.