Mesoscale modeling of the water liquid-vapor interface: A surface tension calculation

We report a mesoscale modeling of the liquid-vapor interface of water. A mesoscopic model of water has been established in dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) to reproduce the interfacial properties of water. The surface tension and coexisting densities are compared between atomistic and mesoscopic simulations. Simple scaling relations have been established to link the atomistic and mesoscopic length and time scales. Our study demonstrates the capability of the DPD method to explore the interfacial properties of a planar water liquid-vapor interface and a water nanodroplet. This constitutes an important step toward the calculation of the surface tension of larger and more complex interfacial systems.