Liquid Metals

Liquid Metals covers topics about the properties of liquid metals, with emphasis on the microscopic description of the electron states. The book discusses radial distribution function, which is the quantitative way by which the structure of a monatomic fluid may be described, and the scattering of X-rays (or neutrons) from the fluid. The text describes the way by which the forces operating in liquid metals may be qualitatively described; the theory of electron screening in metals; the shielding of a structureless ion core in the Born approximation; and ways by which the structure of the ion core can profoundly influence the shielding. The forces operating between ions in liquid metals; the properties of solid metals; the time-dependent generalization of the structure factor; the dynamics of fluids from inelastic neutron scattering; and the nature of the energy level spectrum of the electrons in a liquid metal are also considered. Students of elementary quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics and physicists will find the book invaluable.