Peculiar property of noble gases and its explanation through the Enskog--Vlasov model

Abstract

A new observation is presented that the densities and temperatures at the critical and triple points ($n_{cr}$, $n_{tp}$, $T_{cr}$, and $T_{tp}$) of neon, argon, krypton, and xenon are such that $T_{cr}/T_{tp}=1.803\pm 0.5\%$ and $n_{cr}/n_{tp}=$ $0.3782\pm 1.7\%$ (of the two remaining noble gases, helium does not have a triple point and, for radon, $n_{tp}$ is unknown). None other group of substances seem to have these parameters within such narrow ranges. We explain this peculiar property of noble gases by sphericity of their molecules, as a result of which they satisfy the Enskog--Vlasov (EV) kinetic model. The EV model has also allowed us to identify two more parameter combinations which are virtually the same for all noble gases.