Exact solution of the mean spherical approximation for a model liquid metal potential. I. Method of solution

Abstract

The Mean Spherical Approximation is solved exactly for a model liquid metal potential using the Baxter factorisation of the Ornstein-Zernike equation. The solution reduces to solving four simultaneous nonlinear algebraic equations and an outline of a method for numerically solving this system is given. Explicit expressions for the energy and virial pressures are given, as are the methods for calculating structure factors and correlation functions.