Does a microscopically inhomogenous polar liquid have a dielectric constant?

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The authors report computer simulations for the simplest typical polar fluid, with a Stockmayer S1 potential, which is confined in a spherical container with hard walls for three situations: one where a drop in its vapour is formed, one where the fluid is more confined and one where it is severely confined. Four independent methods are used to test the hypothesis that the static dielectric properties of such microscopically inhomogenous systems can be represented by a local dielectric constant, epsilon (r). It is found that this is a useful approximation for the liquid-vapour surface inhomogeneity but is probably less useful for the oscillatory inhomogeneities encountered in the more confined fluids. This result is likely to be true in general for real fluids of similar polarity. Moreover, it is probably unnecessary to include the possibility that the dielectric is anisotropic unless the liquid is considerably more polar and/or has a considerably more anisotropic intermolecular potential. The computations include an evaluation of the Maxwell field in a dielectric liquid, which involves special difficulties and has not previously been attempted.

This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit: