Quick and accurate estimation of the elastic constants using the minimum image method

A method for determining the elastic properties using the minimum image method (MIM) is proposed and tested on a model system of particles interacting by the Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential. The elastic constants of the LJ system are determined in the thermodynamic limit, N→∞, using the Monte Carlo (MC) method in the NVT and NPT ensembles. The simulation results show that when determining the elastic constants, the contribution of long-range interactions cannot be ignored, because that would lead to erroneous results. In addition, the simulations have revealed that the inclusion of further interactions of each particle with all its minimum image neighbors even in case of small systems leads to results which are very close to the values of elastic constants in the thermodynamic limit. This enables one for a quick and accurate estimation of the elastic constants using very small samples.