MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY OF THE CURVATURE CORRECTION TO THE SURFACE-TENSION

The first order curvature correction to the surface tension of a drop is given by Tolman's length. Up until now, no accurate estimates of this length existed for realistic fluids. Recently Blokhuis and Bedeaux proposed a new relation that expresses Tolman's length as an integral over the pair distribution function of a planar liquid-vapor interface. We have used this relation to obtain estimates of Tolman's length from molecular dynamics simulations of a Lennard-Jones liquid-vapor interface. We found it to be positive and small for a range of temperatures running from the triple-point temperature to the critical temperature.