Computation of structure factors of liquid metals by use of the sticky-hard-sphere potential.

Abstract

The structure factors of several liquid metals have been calculated through the Baxter solution of the Percus-Yevick equation for a sticky-hard-sphere potential. The computed structure factors are in excellent agreement with experiment, thus showing that the sticky-hard-sphere model, which has only two parameters, is quite good in explaining structural properties. From the calculated structure factors the corresponding radial distribution functions g(r) have been computed for different metals and, hence, the nearest-neighbor distance, the coordination number, and the Ashcroft effective number of electrons per metallic atom.