340033 Hard-Disk Equation of State: First-Order Liquid-Hexatic Transition in Two Dimensions With Three Simulation Methods

Monday, November 4, 2013: 2:50 PM
Union Square 15 (Hilton)
Michael Engel1, Joshua A. Anderson1, Sharon C. Glotzer1, Masaharu Isobe2,3, Etienne P. Bernard4 and Werner Krauth5, (1)Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, (2)Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Nagoya, Japan, (3)Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, (4)Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, (5)Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Superieure, UPMC, Paris, France

We report large-scale computer simulations of the hard-disk system at high densities in the region of the melting transition. Our simulations reproduce the equation of state, previously obtained using the event-chain Monte Carlo algorithm, with a massively parallel implementation of the local Monte Carlo method and with event-driven molecular dynamics. We analyze the relative performance of these simulation methods to sample configuration space and approach equilibrium. Our results confirm the first-order nature of the melting phase transition in hard disks. Phase coexistence is visualized for individual configurations via the orientational order parameter field. The analysis of positional order confirms the existence of the hexatic phase.

Reference: Physical Review E 87, 042134 (2013)


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See more of this Session: Thermophysical Properties and Phase Behavior II
See more of this Group/Topical: Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals