Surface tension and atomic interactions in simple liquids argon, krypton and xenon

Accurate Monte Carlo calculations of the surface tension of liquid argon, krypton and xenon near their triple points are described. Reliable pair potential functions are used and calculations are made both with and without the Axilrod-Teller-Muto three-body interaction. A novel perturbation method is used for the calculations with three-body interactions. Pair potentials alone give values of surface tension which are larger than the experimental values by 19% for argon and by 35% for xenon. When the three-body interaction is included the calculated results are within 2·2% of the experimental values for argon, krypton and xenon. © 1993 Taylor & Francis Ltd.