ABSTRACT
Complex systems exhibit a rich behavior over a range of length and time scales that is not always possible to reach with accurate atomistic simulations. A complementary strategy is to abandon the detailed atomic potentials and replace them instead with simpler models. Such coarse-grained models have a rich history and have had successes in recent years in the modeling of polymer [Glotzer and Paul 2002] and biological systems [Ayton, Noid, and Voth 2007; Brannigan, Lin, and Brown 2006; Tozzini 2005; Nielsen et al. 2004]. These vary from simple to more detailed and have been successful in predicting structural properties as well as thermodynamic phase behavior. The successes of these models often have in common an accurate representation of the architecture and shape of the particles they are modeling. The importance of particle shape in the thermodynamic properties of the system was recognized early on, starting from Onsager’s (1949) realization that anisotropic particles will order to maximize their excluded volume entropy when it overcomes their con gurational entropy above a critical volume fraction.
