Phys. Rev. E
Volume 75, 047701
13 April, 2006
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Lyapunov instability of rigid diatomic molecules in three dimensions: A simpler method

Seungho Choe¹ and Eok Kyun Lee²

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, 2350 Hayward Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
² Department of Chemistry and School of Molecular Science (BK21), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 305-701, Republic of Korea

We present a method to calculate Lyapunov exponents of rigid diatomic molecules in three dimensions (12N-dimensional phase space). The spectra of Lyapunov exponents are obtained for 32 rigid diatomic molecules interacting through the Weeks-Chandler-Anderson potential for various bond length and densities, and compared with those of Shin et al.