Eur. Phys. J. B 27, 417-428 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00173-2

Height and density correlations at liquid surfaces; application to X-ray scattering

LURE, CNRS-CEA-MINREC, Centre Universitaire Paris-Sud, bâtiment 209D, BP 34, 91898 Orsay Cedex, France and Service de Physique de l'État Condensé, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

Corresponding author: ^a daillant@lure.u-psud.fr

Received: 12 October 2001
Published online: 6 June 2002

Abstract

We calculate height-height correlation functions, near-surface density-density correlation functions and the corresponding frequency integrated spectra for a heat conducting viscous fluid. We calculate scattering cross-sections for the static and dynamic X-ray scattering experiments recently developed to investigate the nanometer-scale structure and fluctuations of liquid interfaces. We show that the density-density correlations make an important contribution to the scattering, even using evanescent waves, and that they are strongly affected by the surface. We also discuss the implications for X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy and X-ray inelastic scattering.