Fluid of penetrable spheres: testing the universality of the bridge functional
Penetrable spheres have been the object of recent extensive investigations as a prototype for intermicellar interactions in a solvent, and as representing a class of bounded potentials allowing complete interpenetrability of the particles. Here we compare density-functional and simulation results for the pair-correlation functions in a bulk fluid of penetrable spheres, as a stringent test for the approximation of "universality" of the bridge functional. Considering either a fundamental-measure functional for penetrable spheres or a perturbative treatment using a fundamental-measure hard-sphere functional, we conclude that hard-sphere-type bridge functionals are applicable also for bounded potentials with high penetrability.
Rosenfeld
Y
Nuclear Research Center Negev, P.O. Box 9001, Beer-Sheva 84190, Israel.
Schmidt
M
Watzlawek
M
Lowen
H