Efficient approaches to solutions of partition function for condensed matters

BY Ning and LC Gong and TC Weng and XJ Ning, JOURNAL OF PHYSICS- CONDENSED MATTER, 33, 115901 (2021).

DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/abd33b

The key problem of statistical physics standing over one hundred years is how to exactly calculate the partition function (or free energy), which severely hinders the theory to be applied to predict the thermodynamic properties of condensed matters. Very recently, we developed a direct integral approach (DIA) to the solutions and achieved ultrahigh computational efficiency and precision. In the present work, the background and the limitations of DIA were examined in details, and another method with the same efficiency was established to overcome the shortage of DIA for condensed system with lower density. The two methods were demonstrated with empirical potentials for solid and liquid cooper, solid argon and C-60 molecules by comparing the derived internal energy or pressure with the results of vast molecular dynamics simulations, showing that the precision is about ten times higher than previous methods in a temperature range up to melting point. The ultrahigh efficiency enables the two methods to be performed with ab initio calculations and the experimental equation of state of solid copper up to similar to 600 GPa was well reproduced, for the first time, from the partition function via density functional theory implemented.

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