title: Thermodynamic perturbation theory for polydisperse colloidal suspensions using orthogonal polynomial expansions.
abstract: We present a method for calculating the thermodynamic and structural properties of a polydisperse liquid by means of a thermodynamic perturbation theory: the optimized random phase approximation (ORPA). The approach is an extension of a method proposed recently by one of us for an integral equation application [Phys. Rev. E 54, 4411 (1996)]. The method is based on expansions of all sigma-dependent functions in the orthogonal polynomials p(i)(sigma) associated with the weight function f(Sigma)(sigma), where sigma is a random variable (in our case the size of the particles) with distribution f(Sigma)(sigma). As in the one-component or general N-component case, one can show that the solution of the ORPA is equivalent to the minimization of a suitably chosen functional with respect to variations of the direct correlation functions. To illustrate the method, we study a polydisperse system of square-well particles; extension to other hard-core or soft-core systems is straightforward.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Theoretische Physik, TU Wien, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10, A-1040 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leroch
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kahl
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lado