Statistics of Voronoi Polyhedra in Rapidly Quenched Monatomic Liquids. I. Changes during Rapid-Quenching Process

Analysis of the distribution of the Voronoi polyhedron is made for the computer simulated states of liquid rubidium in the rapid-quenching process from the melting point down to near the liquid helium temperature. The mean values of the numbers of faces and vertices per polyhedron decrease monotonously from the initial liquid state to the final quenched one, and for both the characteristics the slope of decrease changes around the temperature where the Wendt-Abraham parameter g min / g max changes its slope. The number of pentagonal faces per polyhedron and the population of quasi-dodecahedra increase substantially below this temperature. Statistics of the topological characteristics of Voronoi polyhedra in the final quenched state shows clear difference in the short-range order between the amorphous and the liquid states.