title: Depletion force in the infinite-dilution limit in a solvent of nonadditive hard spheres.
abstract: The mutual entropic depletion force felt by two solute "big" hard spheres immersed in a binary mixture solvent of nonadditive "small" hard spheres is calculated as a function of the surface-to-surface distance by means of canonical Monte Carlo simulations and through a recently proposed rational-function approximation [R. Fantoni and A. Santos, Phys. Rev. E 84, 041201 (2011)]. Four representative scenarios are investigated: symmetric solute particles and the limit where one of the two solute spheres becomes a planar hard wall, in both cases with symmetric and asymmetric solvents. In all cases, the influence on the depletion force due to the nonadditivity in the solvent is determined in the mixed state. Comparison between results from the theoretical approximation and from the simulation shows a good agreement for surface-to-surface distances greater than the smallest solvent diameter.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze dei Materiali e Nanosistemi, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Calle Larga S. Marta DD2137, I-30123 Venezia, Italy.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fantoni
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física and Instituto de Computación Científica Avanzada de Extremadura (ICCAEx), Universidad de Extremadura, Badajoz E-06071, Spain.
authors.forename: Andrés
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Santos