Minimal energy clusters of hard spheres with short range attractions.
We calculate the ground states of hard-sphere clusters, in which n identical hard spherical particles bind by isotropic short-ranged attraction. Combining graph theoretic enumeration with basic geometry, we analytically solve for clusters of n<or=10 particles satisfying minimal rigidity constraints. For n<or=9 the ground state degeneracy increases exponentially with n, but for n>9 the degeneracy decreases due to the formation of structures with >3n-6 contacts. Interestingly, for n=10 and possibly at n=11 and n=12, the ground states of this system are subsets of hexagonal close-packed crystals. The ground states are not icosahedra at n=12 and n=13. We relate our results to the structure and thermodynamics of suspensions of colloidal particles with short-ranged attractions.
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
Natalie
N
Arkus
Vinothan N
VN
Manoharan
Michael P
MP
Brenner
D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013816:Thermodynamics
D003102:Colloids