Induced phase transitions and structure in simple liquids

Phase transitions in the hard disk system under the influence of an external potential is investigated using density functional theory. An external potential can induce the freezing of the hard disks by lowering the freezing density and under certain conditions can cause the hard disks to undergo a re-entrant melting transition. A fundamental measure approach is employed to solve the structure of the liquid in various inhomogeneous situations and to determine the phase diagram of the hard disk system. The obtained phase diagram shows good agreement with experimental observations and simulation studies and supports the prevailing hypothesis for induced phase transitions in the hard disk system. To investigate the effect of increasing dimensionality on the phase diagram a system of confined hard spheres is studied. The liquid structure is solved in various inhomogeneous situations using the tensor-based version of fundamental measure theory and a framework is presented for calculating the full phase diagram of confined hard spheres. Finally, a long-range interaction potential is included in the description of the particles. This is done using a combination of fundamental measure theory for soft systems and a molecular field theory. A framework is presented for solving the liquid structure and some results are shown for the Coulomb system.