Singularities of the properties of liquid metals near the critical temperature. Effect of multielectron correlation

The method of model pseudopotential is used to calculate the electro- and thermophysical properties of melts of alkali metals and aluminum from the melting point to a value of approximately 0.95 critical density. The data obtained shows that the model pseudopotential method permits calculation of the properties of metals throughout their entire range, including regions where singularities are manifest in experiments on the temperature dependence of the properties near the critical temperature. It is shown that these singularities result from a sharp increase in exchange-correlation interaction at reduced densities, and they characterize the beginning of the metal-nonmetal transition in the condensed phase. Multielectron effects are allowed for in a calculation of the screened form factor of the model pseudopotential. The structure of the short-range order is determined from diffraction data and from the hard-sphere model