Unified study of a polyvalent simple metal-aluminium

A comprehensive unified calculation of lattice mechanical and electronic properties of a polyvalent simple metal, Al, is presented using the Heine-Abarenkov (9164) and Gurskii-Krasko (1970) forms of the model potential. A very simple form of the dielectric function proposed recently by Taylor (1978) has been used in conjunction with the above-mentioned potentials to calculate the cohesive energy the equilibrium lattice constant, the second-order elastic constants the pressure derivatives of the second-order elastic constants, the equation of state (at T=0), the phonon dispersion, the mode Gruneisen parameters and the electrical resistivity and thermoelectric power of the liquid metal. The entire calculation is repeated by replacing the Taylor dielectric function by the self-consistent dielectric function proposed by Vashishta and Singwi (1972). The Heine-Abarenkov model pseudopotential combined with either of the two dielectric functions gives quite satisfactory agreement with experiments except in the case of the liquid-metal resistivity, where the discrepancy is quite large.