INTEGRAL-EQUATION APPROACH TO THE STRUCTURE OF LIQUID BINARY ALKALI-METAL ALLOYS

We present a comprehensive study of the structure of liquid binary alkali-metal alloys using integral-equation techniques. As in the one-component case we find that the soft-mean-spherical approximation is definitively superior to the hypernetted-chain approximation for such potentials, having a harshly repulsive short-ranged part and an oscillating long-ranged part. We find very good agreement with other liquid-state theories (perturbative methods and computer experiments) and good agreement with experimental scattering data, the differences being due to the simple model potential used (Ashcroft empty-core potential). By truncating the interactions at increasing distances (until recovering the full potential), we reveal the strong influence of the long-ranged parts of the interaction on the structure. We finally present an attempt to include thermodynamic self-consistency, being for the case of liquid metals a delicate problem that-for the moment-may not be solved exactly.