Effective pair potential and thermodynamic properties of liquid noble metals

Abstract

The variational method associated with the Gibbs-Bogolyubov inequality in the thermodynamic perturbation method allows the determination of the thermodynamic properties of liquid noble metals. The interionic potentials are generated from the energy-wave-number characteristics obtained from a model pseudopotential in conjunction with the dielectric response function of the interacting electron gas. The variation of the packing density with volume and temperature shows a relatively hard core pseudoatom and it is shown that under pressure, along the melting line, the packing density actually increases for noble metals unlike the simple metals. In addition, the results compare favourably with experiments as well as the calculations of Moriarty based on Harrison's generalised transition metal pseudopotential.