Starting from microscopic molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations of constrained Lennard-Jones (LJ) clusters (with constant radius of gyration $R_g$), we construct two mesoscopic models [Langevin dynamics and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)] by coarse graining the LJ clusters into single particles. Both static and dynamic properties of the coarse-grained models are investigated and compared with the MD results. The effective mean force field is computed as a function of the intercluster distance, and the corresponding potential scales linearly with the number of particles per cluster and the temperature. We verify that the mean force field can reproduce the equation of state of the atomistic systems within a wide density range but the radial distribution function only within the dilute and the semidilute regime. The friction force coefficients for both models are computed directly from the time-correlation function of the random force field of the microscopic system. For high density or a large cluster size the friction force is overestimated and the diffusivity underestimated due to the omission of many-body effects as a result of the assumed pairwise form of the coarse-grained force field. When the many-body effect is not as pronounced (e.g., smaller $R_g$ or semidilute system), the DPD model can reproduce the dynamic properties of the MD system.

• Received 27 October 2009
• Publisher error corrected 19 February 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.81.026704