title: Hard ellipsoids: analytically approaching the exact overlap distance.
abstract: Following previous work [G. Odriozola and F. de J. Guevara-Rodríguez, J. Chem. Phys. 134, 201103 (2011)], the replica exchange Monte Carlo technique is used to produce the equation of state of hard 1:5 aspect-ratio oblate ellipsoids for a wide density range. Here, in addition to the analytical approximation of the overlap distance given by Berne and Pechukas (BP) and the exact numerical solution of Perram and Wertheim, we tested a simple modification of the original BP approximation (MBP) which corrects the known T-shape mismatch of BP for all aspect ratios. We found that the MBP equation of state shows a very good quantitative agreement with the exact solution. The MBP analytical expression allowed us to study size effects on the previously reported results. For the thermodynamic limit, we estimated the exact 1:5 hard ellipsoid isotropic-nematic transition at the volume fraction 0.343 ± 0.003, and the nematic-solid transition in the volume fraction interval (0.592 ± 0.006)-(0.634 ± 0.008).
authors: Programa de Ingeniería Molecular, Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo, Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas 152, 07730, México, Distrito Federal, México.
authors: F de J
authors: Fde J
authors: Guevara-Rodríguez
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Odriozola