Dynamics of a monodisperse Lennard-Jones system on a sphere

Abstract

We investigate by molecular dynamics simulation a system of N particles moving on the surface of a two-dimensional sphere and interacting by a Lennard-Jones potential. We detail the way to account for the changes brought by a nonzero curvature, both at a methodological and at a physical level. When compared to a two-dimensional Lennard-Jones liquid on the Euclidean plane, where a phase transition to an ordered hexagonal phase takes place, we find that the presence of excess defects imposed by the topology of the sphere frustrates the hexagonal order. We observe at high density a rapid increase of the relaxation time when the temperature is decreased, whereas in the same range of temperature the pair correlation function of the system evolves only moderately.

Keywords:

• curved interface
• adsorbed fluid
• topological defects

Acknowledgements

We would like to dedicate this paper to our colleague and friend Pierre Turq for this special issue celebrating his contribution to statistical mechanics. We thank F. Sausset for useful discussions and input.