Structure factors of polydisperse systems of hard spheres. A comparison of Monte Carlo simulations and Percus-Yevick theory

Abstract

We present Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the structure factors of polydisperse hard-sphere fluids. The simulations were carried out for 108 particles and packing fractions up to =0.5. The size distribution of the particles was chosen randomly from a log-normal distribution. The MC results are compared with predictions obtained using Percus–Yevick approximation. It is found that for all but the highest densities and the highest polydispersities studied, the Percus–Yevick approximation provides a satisfactory description of the MC data.