Direct calculation of the critical Casimir force in a binary fluid

F Puosi and DL Cardozo and S Ciliberto and PCW Holdsworth, PHYSICAL REVIEW E, 94, 040102 (2016).

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.94.040102

We show that critical Casimir effects can be accessed through direct simulation of a model binary fluid passing through the demixing transition. We work in the semi-grand-canonical ensemble, in slab geometry, in which the Casimir force appears as the excess of the generalized pressure, P-perpendicular to - n mu. The excesses of the perpendicular pressure, P-perpendicular to, and of n mu, are individually of much larger amplitude. A critical pressure anisotropy is observed between forces parallel and perpendicular to the confinement direction, which collapses onto a universal scaling function closely related to that of the critical Casimir force.

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