Isomerizations and relative kinetic stability of LJn clusters in a carrier gas

A number of simulations of LJ(7)@He(rho) and LJ(28)@He(rho), for several values of the density of the carrier gas rho are carried out. Heat capacity data demonstrate that the cluster becomes kinetically more stable at higher values of rho. Using a structural characterization strategy, it is found that the isomeric distributions are affected by changes in rho. The relative isomer probability curves are integrated over the simulation temperature range. The resulting quantities increase as a function of rho monotonically but nonlinearly for Ar-7. The patterns for the integrated probabilities for Ar-28 are less obvious. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.