  We propose a method to determine the locally preferred structure of model
liquids. This latter is obtained numerically as the global minimum of the
effective energy surface of clusters formed by small numbers of particles
embedded in a liquid-like environment. The effective energy is the sum of the
intra-cluster interaction potential and of an external field that describes the
influence of the embedding bulk liquid at a mean-field level. Doing so we
minimize the surface effects present in isolated clusters without introducing
the full blown geometrical frustration present in bulk condensed phases. We
find that the locally preferred structure of the Lennard-Jones liquid is an
icosahedron, and that the liquid-like environment only slightly reduces the
relative stability of the icosahedral cluster. The influence of the boundary
conditions on the nature of the ground-state configuration of Lennard-Jones
clusters is also discussed.
