Eur. Phys. J. E (2005) 16: 225-231
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/e2005-00024-y

Regular Articles

Depletion interactions between two spherocylinders

Institute of Theoretical Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

^* e-mail: wli@stfx.ca

Received: 17 May 2004
Published online: 22 February 2005

Abstract

The depletion interactions between two spherocylinders as functions of their separation and their relative orientation, induced by a small hard-sphere fluid, are calculated by Monte Carlo simulations using the acceptance ratio method (ARM). The torque on the spherocylinders is determined from the resulting potential. The calculation shows that the ARM is an effective way to obtain depletion interactions of spherocylinders. The depletion interaction under the Asakura-Oosawa (also excluded-volume) approximation is also calculated numerically.