| Abstract
| - Hard spherocylinders (cylinders of length L and diameter D capped at both ends with two hemispheres)provide a suitable model for investigating entropy-driven mesophase formations in real colloidal fluids thatare composed of rigid rodlike molecules. We performed extensive Monte Carlo simulations of this modelfluid for elongations in the range of 3 ≤ L/D ≤ 5 and up to L/D = 20 to investigate the relative importanceof translational and orientational correlations allowing for the emergence of nematic or smectic order in theframework of the so-called residual multiparticle entropy (RMPE). The vanishing of this quantity, whichincludes the re-summed contributions of all spatial correlations involving more than two particles, signals thestructural changes that take place at increasing densities in the isotropic fluid. We found that the orderingthresholds detected through the zero-RMPE condition systematically correlate with the corresponding phase-transition points, whatever the nature of the higher-density phase coexisting with the isotropic fluid. PACS64.60.-i, 64.70.Md, 61.20.Ja, 65.40.Gr.
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