Finite-size scaling study of shear viscosity anomaly at liquid-liquid criticality

Abstract

We study the equilibrium dynamics of a symmetrical binary Lennard-Jones fluid mixture near its consolute criticality. Molecular dynamics simulation results for the shear viscosity,., from a micro-canonical ensemble are compared with those from a canonical ensemble with various thermostats. It is observed that the Nose-Hoover thermostat is a good candidate for this purpose, and is therefore adopted for the quantification of the critical singularity of., to avoid the temperature fluctuations (or even drifts) that are often encountered in microcanonical simulations. Via a finite-size scaling analysis of our simulation data we have been able to confirm that the shear viscosity exhibits a weak critical singularity in agreement with the theoretical predictions. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.