Relationships between three-body and two-body interactions in fluids and solids

Molecular dynamics data are reported for two-body and three-body interactions in noble gases at densities covering the gas, liquid, and solid phases. The data indicate that simple relationships exist between three- and two-body interactions in both fluid and solid phases. The relationship for liquids has a simple density dependence with only one external parameter. In contrast, the solid phase relationship depends both on density and on the square of density and requires the evaluation of two parameters. The relationships are tested for both system-size and temperature dependences. The values of the relationship parameters are only sensitive to system size when a small number of atoms are involved. For 500 or more atoms, they remain nearly constant. The relationships are valid for both subcritical and slightly supercritical temperatures. A practical benefit of the relationships is that they enable the use of two-body intermolecular potentials for the prediction of the properties of real systems without the computational expense of three-body calculations.