Variational Coarse-Graining of Discretized Field Theories of Fluids

ORAL

Abstract

Statistical field theory models have proven to be valuable tools for studying the equilibrium behavior of polymeric fluids, but direct simulation of these field theories without use of the mean field approximation is computationally demanding. Computational resources can be extended to simulate larger systems by discretizing the field variables with a coarsely spaced lattice, but indelicate coarse graining risks truncation of important short-wavelength physics. We introduce a variational method for systematically coarse-graining discretized field theoretic models of fluids while minimizing this truncation error.

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Authors

  • Michael Villet

    University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Glenn Fredrickson

    UCSB - MC CAM, Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California, Santa Barbara, Materials Research Lab, UCSB, Department of Chemical Engineering and the Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, UCSB, USA, UC Santa Barbara, UCSB