Microscopic dynamics in liquid lithium

A detailed analysis of the dynamic properties of liquid lithium at three distinct thermodynamic points has been performed by computer simulation. The reliability of the adopted potential model is supported by a comparison with neutron- and x-ray scattering data. Several dynamical properties (both single-particle and collective) are subsequently investigated, and their evolution with temperature compared with the one reported in recent experiments. On the theoretical side, it is particularly interesting to focus on single-particle features. We show that most of them (including ordinary and space-dependent diffusion) can satisfactorily be interpreted by a simplified mode-coupling approach.