The self-consistent multi scale simulation of complex fluids*

We present a method that uses self-consistent simulation of coarse grained and fine-grained models, in order to analyse properties of physical systems. The method uses the coarse-grained model to obtain a first estimate of the quantity of interest, before computing a correction by analysing properties of the fine system.
We illustrate the method by applying it to the Asakura-Oosawa (AO) model of colloid-polymer mixtures. We show that the liquid-vapour critical point in that system is affected by three-body interactions which are neglected in the corresponding coarse-grained model. We analyse the size of this effect and the nature of the three-body and higher interactions.
Additionally, we apply our methodology to the binary hard-sphere mixture to demonstrate the existence of the liquid-vapour critical point.