Approximate energy minimization for large Lennard-Jones clusters

Abstract

We have designed a simple method to place particles on lattices, concentric shells and icosahedral concentric layers for minimizing the total energy of Lennard-Jones clusters, approximately, by analytical means. The most significant difference of our schemes from others is the dramatic reduction of parameters, which allows the study of large clusters, not possible otherwise. We present the derivation of formulae for minimal per-particle energy and for inter-particle distance. We also present their asymptotic values for large number of particles.