Density-functional theory for the interfacial properties of a dipolar fluid

The authors have studied the interfacial properties of a model dipolar fluid using a generalization of the density functional mean-field approximation. The generalization consists in weighting configurations in the mean-field average of the perturbative part of the energy by the low-density approximation of the radial distribution function. This leads to a bulk phase diagram which depends explicitly on the strength of the multipole moments, in contrast with the results of the simpler version of the theory. The calculated surface tension and density-orientational profile are in fair agreement with computer simulation (molecular dynamics) results: the addition of a dipole moment causes the surface tension to increase and there is interfacial ordering induced by purely multipolar forces. An extension of the theory to binary fluid mixtures is also briefly discussed.