Finite-size effects in silica: a landscape perspective

Abstract

Finite-size effects are analysed for the well-known BKS model of silica. Results are presented for thermodynamic as well as dynamic observables which play a key role in the analysis of the potential energy landscape. It turns out that, for the analysed temperature range (T≥3000 K), a system with only N = 99 particles does not display significant finite-size effects in thermodynamic observables. In agreement with previous work, one observes finite-size effects for the dynamics. However, after rescaling of time the finite-size effects nearly disappear. These results suggest that for BKS-silica a system with only N = 99 particles is sufficiently large to study important properties of structural relaxation in the temperature range considered.