Statistical-mechanical perturbation theory for liquid metals

The techniques of statistical mechanical perturbation theory are applied to liquid metals. An ion-ion repulsive pair potential is determined from an experimental structure factor curve at a temperature β₀=1/kT₀. The theory then permits the prediction of radial distribution functions, structure factors, compressibilities, and other properties at all liquid temperatures. As a preliminary test of the theory, it has been used to calculate the isothermal compressibilities of Na, Hg and Ga. The results are in very good agreement with the experimental values, which for the last metals differ from earlier theoretical predictions by almost a factor of five.