On the radial distribution function of a hard-sphere fluid

Abstract

Two related approaches, one fairly recent [A. Trokhymchuk et al., J. Chem. Phys. 123, 024501 (2005)] and the other one introduced fifteen years ago [S. B. Yuste and A. Santos, Phys. Rev. A 43, 5418 (1991)], for the derivation of analytical forms of the radial distribution function of a fluid of hard spheres are compared. While they share similar starting philosophy, the first one involves the determination of eleven parameters while the second is a simple extension of the solution of the Percus-Yevick equation. It is found that the {second} approach has a better global accuracy and the further asset of counting already with a successful generalization to mixtures of hard spheres and other related systems.