Random sequential adsorption of straight rigid rods on a simple cubic lattice

•The RSA problem of straight rigid rods on a simple cubic lattice is studied.•A new procedure to calculate jamming coverage θjθj is presented.•The behavior of the jamming coverage as a function of the rod size is obtained.•The value of θjθj obtained for dimers corrects previous calculations in the literature.

Random sequential adsorption of straight rigid rods of length kk (kk-mers) on a simple cubic lattice has been studied by numerical simulations and finite-size scaling analysis. The kk-mers were irreversibly and isotropically deposited into the lattice. The calculations were performed by using a new theoretical scheme, whose accuracy was verified by comparison with rigorous analytical data. The results, obtained for k   ranging from 2 to 64, revealed that (i) the jamming coverage for dimers (k=2k=2) is θj=0.918388(16)θj=0.918388(16). Our result corrects the previously reported value of θj=0.799(2)θj=0.799(2) (Tarasevich and Cherkasova, 2007); (ii) θjθj exhibits a decreasing function when it is plotted in terms of the kk-mer size, being θj(∞)=0.4045(19)θj(∞)=0.4045(19) the value of the limit coverage for large kk’s; and (iii) the ratio between percolation threshold and jamming coverage shows a non-universal behavior, monotonically decreasing to zero with increasing kk.