title: Statistical mechanical description of liquid systems in an electric field.
abstract: We formulate the statistical mechanical description of liquid systems for both polarizable and polar systems in an electric field in the E ensemble, which is the pendant to the thermodynamic description in terms of the free energy at constant potential. The contribution of the electric field to the configurational integral Q[over ]_{N}(E) in the E ensemble is given in an exact form as a factor in the integrand of Q[over ]_{N}(E) . We calculate the contribution of the electric field to the Ornstein-Zernike formula for the scattering function in the E ensemble. As an application, we determine the field-induced shift of the critical temperature for polarizable and polar liquids and show that the shift is upward for polarizable liquids and downward for polar liquids.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, D-06099 Halle, Germany.
authors.forename: Semjon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stepanow
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Thurn-Albrecht