Freezing of adhesive hard-spheres

Abstract

A theoretical study of the freezing of adhesive hard spheres within the generalized-effective-liquid approximation has been performed. The liquid-solid phase diagram exhibits most of the trends observed for simple liquids. There is, however, no triple point because the solid phase becomes mechanically unstable iii the region where the liquid-solid transition crosses the percolation transition. A useful closed-form expression for the free energy of the fluid phases is also given.