Structure and thermodynamics of a classical hard-sphere fluid: A self-consistent theory

Abstract

A self-contained Ornstein-Zernike approximation scheme for calculating the structural and thermodynamic properties of a hard-sphere fluid is proposed within a simple functional ansatz for the tail function d(r) and without resorting to any a priori availability of numerical simulation data. This is done by adopting a complete thermodynamic closure on the solution of the model by means of internal-consistency constraints which arise from demanding, through the knowledge of the structural correlations in the fluid, a unique estimate for the equation of state whatever route is followed for its evaluation.