Vapor-liquid coexistence of the Stockmayer fluid in nonuniform external fields

We investigate the structure and phase behavior of the Stockmayer fluid in the presence of nonuniform electric fields using molecular simulation. We find that an initially homogeneous vapor phase undergoes a local phase separation in a nonuniform field due to the combined effect of the field gradient and the fluid vapor–liquid equilibrium. This results in a high density fluid condensing in the strong field region. The system polarization exhibits a strong field dependence due to the fluid condensation.