Contribution of three-body interactions to the energy of vacancy formation in solid argon

Abstract

The discrepancy between the calculated value of the free energy of vacancy formation in solid argon and that obtained from an analysis of specific heat measurements, as established recently by Foreman and Lidiard, is interpreted in terms of three-body contributions on the basis of the theory developed by this author and Zimering to explain the absolute stability of the face-centred cubic configurations of crystals of the heavy rare gas atoms. It is shown that the vacancy-energy deviation from the pair-potential value agrees in sign and magnitude with predictions resulting from the three-body theory.