Heat induced instability in a model liquid

Abstract
The stability of the homogeneous nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) heat flow algorithm due to Evans is discussed with respect to a two dimensional soft disc inverse-twelve N-particle liquid. The thermal conductivity coefficient is evaluated as a function of an induced heat field, related to ∇ ln T, for N = 56, 224, 896 and 3584. We show that homogeneous heat conduction becomes unstable for large systems (N ⩾ 896) at sufficiently large values of the field; the conductivity increases and the system conducts heat by generating a solitary shock wave. The results are strongly dependent on N and differ in this respect from parallel NEMD studies on a liquid subjected to a shear.

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