Evaluation of a new self-consistent approximation for an ionic fluid

Abstract

Some results are given for the pair distribution functions of a fluid of charged hard spheres in a new self-consistent approximation due to Ho/ye and Stell. Appropriate thermodynamic and contact-value expressions to be used as input in the approximation are developed and compared to available Monte Carlo results; a representative set of resulting distribution functions are also displayed. The approximation appears to be highly successful over a wide range of densities, temperatures, and charge strengths, including the fused-salt regime, where adequate analytic treatments of the structure of ionic fluids have been previously lacking.