Vibrational model of thermal conduction for fluids with soft interactions

TL;DR

This paper develops a vibrational model to describe heat transfer in simple liquids with soft interactions, successfully matching numerical results for Lennard-Jones liquids and plasmas, but not for momentum transfer.

Contribution

It introduces a new vibrational model for thermal conduction in fluids with soft pairwise interactions, linking heat transfer to collective mode spectra.

Findings

Model accurately predicts heat transfer in Lennard-Jones liquids

Model agrees with numerical results for strongly coupled plasmas

The approach does not extend to momentum transfer and viscosity

Abstract

A vibrational model of heat transfer in simple liquids with soft pairwise interatomic interactions is discussed. A general expression is derived, which involves an averaging over the liquid collective mode excitation spectrum. The model is applied to quantify heat transfer in a dense Lennard-Jones liquid and a strongly coupled one-component plasma. Remarkable agreement with the available numerical results is documented. A similar picture does not apply to the momentum transfer and shear viscosity of liquids.