A comparison of molecular dynamics and analytic calculation of correlations in an aligned ferrofluid

Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to determine spatial correlations in a fluid whose constituent particles interact by a central soft-sphere potential plus an interaction between aligned dipoles. The resulting correlation functions are compared with those obtained from an analytic theory based on the mean spherical approximation. Good agreement is found for a range of values of fluid density and particle dipole moment. For large values of the dipole moment a lamellar structure is predicted by the simulations.