The stability limit of the fluid phase of polydisperse sticky spheres

It has been shown by Stell (1991, J. statist. Phys., 63, 1203) that at low temperature monodisperse sticky spheres collapse to form coexisting close-p acked solid and infinitely dilute gases. We show that polydisperse sticky s pheres also collapse and calculate the collapse temperature. The polydisper se spheres separate into fractions with narrower polydispersities which can then solidify. This is perhaps the first example of a single-peaked polydi sperse mixture phase solidifying and separating. It implies that a mixture of polydisperse large hard spheres with much smaller hard spheres does not show fluid-fluid coexistence.