Binary non-additive hard sphere mixtures: Fluid demixing, asymptotic decay of correlations and free fluid interfaces
Abstract
Using a fundamental measure density functional theory we investigate both bulk and inhomogeneous systems of the binary non-additive hard sphere model. For sufficiently large (positive) non-additivity the mixture phase separates into two fluid phases with different compositions. We calculate bulk fluid-fluid coexistence curves for a range of size ratios and non-additivity parameters and find that they compare well to simulation results from the literature. Using the Ornstein-Zernike equation, we investigate the asymptotic, r->infinity, decay of the partial pair correlation functions, gij(r). At low densities there occurs a structural crossover in the asymptotic decay between two different damped oscillatory modes with different wavelengths corresponding to the two intra-species hard core diameters. On approaching the fluid-fluid critical point there is Fisher-Widom crossover from exponentially damped oscillatory to monotonic asymptotic decay. Using the density functional we calculate the density profiles for the planar free fluid-fluid interface between coexisting fluid phases. We show that the type of asymptotic decay of gij(r) not only determines the asymptotic decay of the interface profiles, but is also relevant for intermediate and even short-ranged behaviour. We also determine the surface tension of the free fluid interface, finding that it increases with non-additivity, and that on approaching the critical point mean-field scaling holds.