Embedded atom model

In computational chemistry and computational physics, the embedded atom model, embedded-atom method or EAM, is an approximation describing the energy between atoms,an interatomic potential. The energy is a function of a sum of functions of the separation between an atom and its neighbors. In the original model, by Murray Daw and Mike Baskes, the latter functions represent the electron density. EAM is related to the second moment approximation to tight binding theory, also known as the Finnis-Sinclair model. These models are particularly appropriate for metallic systems. Embedded-atom methods are widely used in molecular dynamics simulations. In computational chemistry and computational physics, the embedded atom model, embedded-atom method or EAM, is an approximation describing the energy between atoms,an interatomic potential. The energy is a function of a sum of functions of the separation between an atom and its neighbors. In the original model, by Murray Daw and Mike Baskes, the latter functions represent the electron density. EAM is related to the second moment approximation to tight binding theory, also known as the Finnis-Sinclair model. These models are particularly appropriate for metallic systems. Embedded-atom methods are widely used in molecular dynamics simulations. In a simulation, the potential energy of an atom, i {displaystyle i!} , is given by where r i j {displaystyle r_{ij}!} is the distance between atoms i {displaystyle i!} and j {displaystyle j!} , ϕ α β {displaystyle phi _{alpha eta }} is a pair-wise potential function, ρ β {displaystyle ho _{eta }!} is the contribution to the electron charge density from atom j {displaystyle j!} of type β {displaystyle eta !} at the location of atom i {displaystyle i!} , and F {displaystyle F!} is an embedding function that represents the energy required to place atom i {displaystyle i!} of type α {displaystyle alpha !} into the electron cloud.