DENSITY-FUNCTIONAL THEORY OF ADHESIVE HARD-SPHERE FLUIDS

We present a simple density functional approach to study the structure of homogeneous as well as inhomogeneous adhesive hard sphere fluid. R adial distribution function g(r) of the homogeneous adhesive hard sphe re fluid is calculated by making use of the well known Percus identity which relates the density distribution of an inhomogeneous fluid to t he g(r) of the corresponding homogeneous fluid when the external poten tial responsible for the inhomogeneity is the interparticle potential itself. We have also studied the local density distribution of the sam e fluid confined in a planar slit consisting of hard walls. The input required for the calculation is the two-particle direct correlation fu nction of the bulk fluid, which is taken from the analytical results c orresponding to the Percus Yevick approximation. Both perturbative and nonperturbative weighted density approaches are employed and the calc ulated radial distributions as well as the density profiles are shown on an average to compare quite well with results from computer simulat ion. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.