Effective screening of medium-assisted van der Waals interactions between embedded particles
Johannes Fiedler, Michael Walter, Stefan Yoshi Buhmann
Abstract
The effect of an implicit medium on dispersive interactions of particle pairs is discussed, and simple expressions for the correction relative to vacuum are derived. We show that a single point Gauss quadrature leads to the intuitive result that the vacuum van der Waals C6-coefficient is screened by the permittivity squared of the environment evaluated near to the resonance frequencies of the interacting particles. This approximation should be particularly relevant if the medium is transparent at these frequencies. In this manuscript, we provide simple models and sets of parameters for commonly used solvents, atoms, and small molecules.
Topics & Concepts
van der Waals forcePhysicsVan der Waals surfaceSimple (philosophy)PermittivityVan der Waals radiusPoint (geometry)Resonance (particle physics)Van der Waals strainDLVO theoryStatistical physicsQuadrature (astronomy)Particle (ecology)GaussQuantum mechanicsWork (physics)Hamaker constantComputationClassical mechanicsTheorem of corresponding statesGaussian quadratureRelative permittivityMolecular physicsPoint particleCondensed matter physicsCritical point (mathematics)Atomic physicsVan der Waals equationGaussianQuantum Electrodynamics and Casimir EffectElectrostatics and Colloid InteractionsQuantum, superfluid, helium dynamics