Analytic methods for the Percus-Yevick hard sphere correlation functions

Abstract

The Percus-Yevick theory for hard spheres provides simple accurate expressions for the correlation functions that have proven exceptionally useful. A summary of the author's lecture notes concerning three methods of obtaining these functions are presented. These notes are original only in part. However, they contain some helpful steps and simplifications. The purpose of this paper is to make these notes more widely available.

Keywords

• Percus-Yevick
• hard spheres
• correlation functions
• integral transforms
• analytic results