Thermal fluctuations in the lattice Boltzmann method for nonideal fluids

We introduce thermal fluctuations in the lattice Boltzmann method for nonideal fluids. A fluctuation-dissipation theorem is derived within the Langevin framework and applied to a specific lattice Boltzmann model that approximates the linearized fluctuating Navier-Stokes equations for fluids based on square-gradient free-energy functionals. The obtained thermal noise is shown to ensure equilibration of all degrees of freedom in a simulation to high accuracy. Furthermore, we demonstrate that satisfactory results for most practical applications of fluctuating hydrodynamics can already be achieved using thermal noise derived in the long-wavelength limit.