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Inhomogeneity of local temperature in small clusters in microcanonical equilibrium
Tomoaki Niiyama1, Yasushi Shimizu, Taizo R Kobayashi
1Department of Physics, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan.
Abstract:
Overall homogeneity of temperature is a condition for thermal equilibrium, but, as is demonstrated by classical molecular dynamics simulations, the local temperatures of atoms in small, isolated crystalline clusters in microcanonical equilibrium are not uniform. The effective temperature determined from individual atomic velocity decreases with distance from the cluster center. It is argued that these effects are due to the conservation of angular and translational momentum. A general microcanonical expression is derived for the spatial dependence of the statistics of the kinetic energies of individual atoms; this fits the numerical observations well.
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