Entropy of liquid metals

An extensive analysis of the entropy is reported for 22 nearly free electron metals. The pair correlation entropy is computed from measured pair correlation functions, and the magnitude and temperature dependence of this entropy contribution shows approximately universal behaviour for most liquid metals. The higher order correlation entropy is zero for the simple metals, but is non-zero for several complex liquid metals, including Hg, Ga and Sn. The results are interpreted in terms of the motion of ions in a liquid, in which each ion is approximately trapped in the potential well of its neighbours, and where the presence of higher-order correlation entropy implies the existence of an n-ion interaction, for n ≥ 3.