Thermodynamic behavior of binary mixtures of hard spheres: Semianalytical solutions on a Husimi lattice built with cubes

Freezing phase transition in hard-core lattice gases on the triangular lattice with exclusion up to seventh next-nearest neighbor

Hard-core lattice-gas models are minimal models to study entropy-driven phase transitions. In the k-nearest-neighbor lattice gas, a particle excludes all sites up to the kth next-nearest neighbors from being occupied by another particle. As k increases from one, it extrapolates from nearest-neighbor exclusion to the hard-sphere gas. In this paper we study the model on the triangular lattice for k≤7 using a flat histogram algorithm that includes cluster moves. Earlier studies focused on k≤3. We show that for 4≤k≤7, the system undergoes a single phase transition from a low-density fluid phase to a high-density sublattice-ordered phase. Using partition function zeros and nonconvexity properties of the entropy, we show that the transitions are discontinuous. The critical chemical potential, coexistence densities, and critical pressure are determined accurately.

Rejection-free cluster Wang-Landau algorithm for hard-core lattice gases

We introduce a rejection-free, flat histogram, cluster algorithm to determine the density of states of hard-core lattice gases. We show that the algorithm is able to efficiently sample low entropy states that are usually difficult to access, even when the excluded volume per particle is large. The algorithm is based on simultaneously evaporating all the particles in a strip and reoccupying these sites with a new appropriately chosen configuration. We implement the algorithm for the particular case of the hard-core lattice gas in which the first k next-nearest neighbors of a particle are excluded from being occupied. It is shown that the algorithm is able to reproduce the known results for k=1,2,3 both on the square and cubic lattices. We also show that, in comparison, the corresponding flat histogram algorithms with either local moves or unbiased cluster moves are less accurate and do not converge as the system size increases.

Husimi-lattice solutions and the coherent-anomaly-method analysis for hard-square lattice gases

Although lattice gases composed of particles preventing up to their kth nearest neighbors from being occupied (the kNN models) have been widely investigated in the literature, the location and the universality class of the fluid-columnar transition in the 2NN model on the square lattice are still a topic of debate. Here, we present grand-canonical solutions of this model on Husimi lattices built with diagonal square lattices, with 2L(L+1) sites, for L⩽7. The systematic sequence of mean-field solutions confirms the existence of a continuous transition in this system, and extrapolations of the critical chemical potential μ_{2,c}(L) and particle density ρ_{2,c}(L) to L→∞ yield estimates of these quantities in close agreement with previous results for the 2NN model on the square lattice. To confirm the reliability of this approach, we employ it also for the 1NN model, where very accurate estimates for the critical parameters μ_{1,c} and ρ_{1,c}-for the fluid-solid transition in this model on the square lattice-are found from extrapolations of data for L⩽6. The nonclassical critical exponents for these transitions are investigated through the coherent anomaly method (CAM), which in the 1NN case yields β and ν differing by at most 6% from the expected Ising exponents. For the 2NN model, the CAM analysis is somewhat inconclusive, because the exponents sensibly depend on the value of μ_{2,c} used to calculate them. Notwithstanding, our results suggest that β and ν are considerably larger than the Ashkin-Teller exponents reported in numerical studies of the 2NN system.

Fluid-fluid demixing and density anomaly in a ternary mixture of hard spheres

We report the grand-canonical solution of a ternary mixture of discrete hard spheres defined on a Husimi lattice built with cubes, which provides a mean-field approximation for this system on the cubic lattice. The mixture is composed of pointlike particles (0NN) and particles which exclude up to their first (1NN) and second neighbors (2NN), with activities z_{0}, z_{1}, and z_{2}, respectively. Our solution reveals a very rich thermodynamic behavior, with two solid phases associated with the ordering of 1NN (S1) or 2NN particles (S2), and two fluid phases, one being regular (RF) and the other characterized by a dominance of 0NN particles (F0 phase). However, in most part of the phase diagram these fluid (F) phases are indistinguishable. Discontinuous transitions are observed between all the four phases, yielding several coexistence surfaces in the system, among which a fluid-fluid and a solid-solid demixing surface. The former one is limited by a line of critical points and a line of triple points (where the phases RF-F0-S2 coexist), both meeting at a special point, after which the fluid-fluid coexistence becomes metastable. Another line of triple points is found, connecting the F-S1, F-S2, and S1-S2 coexistence surfaces. A critical F-S1 surface is also observed meeting the F-S1 coexistence one at a line of tricritical points. Furthermore, a thermodynamic anomaly characterized by minima in isobaric curves of the total density of particles is found, yielding three surfaces of minimal density in the activity space, depending on which activity is kept fixed during its calculation.