Pressure-Consistent Integral Equation for Classical Fluids: Hard-Sphere Solutions

Abstract

An approximate integral equation for the pair correlation function of a classical fluid, proposed previously, has been solved numerically for the hard‐sphere potential. The equation contains a parameter which is chosen so as to yield consistency between the virial and compressibility equations of state. The computed thermodynamic quantities are compared with those from the Percus—Yevick (PY) and hypernetted‐chain (HNC) integral equations, and with the Ree—Hoover Padé P(3, 3) approximant. Further comparisons are made with a Monte Carlo solution at a density ρσ³=0.8. The pressure‐consistent results are found to improve upon the PY and HNC equations.