THE PHYSICS OF LIQUID PARA-HYDROGEN

Abstract

Macroscopic systems of hydrogen molecules exhibit a rich thermodynamic phase behavior. Due to the simplicity of the molecular constituents a detailed exploration of the thermal properties of these boson systems at low temperatures is of fundamental interest. Here, we report theoretical and experimental results on various spatial correlation functions and corresponding distributions in momentum space of liquid para-hydrogen close to the triple point. They characterize the structure of the correlated liquid and provide information on quantum effects present in this Bose fluid. Numerical calculations employ Correlated Density-Matrix (CDM) theory and Path-Integral Monte-Carlo(PIMC)simulations. A comparison of these theoretical results demonstrates the accuracy of CDM theory. This algorithm therefore permits a fast and efficient quantitative analysis of the normal phase of liquid para-hydrogen. We compare and discuss the theoretical results with available experimental data.