Cellular theory of ordered AB alloys

The heat and volume of formation of ordered simple metal AB alloys are calculated using the density functional formalism. A new method is proposed in which the alloy is partitioned into cells defined by surfaces on which the gradient of the electron density vanishes. The total alloy energy is formulated in terms of cellular and Madelung contributions and is minimized subject to the constraint of equal A and B cell boundary densities. Quantitative results for LiMg are presented.