The chemical potential for dilute hard-sphere mixtures

Abstract

Accurate Monte Carlo evaluation of the probability of inserting an additional particle of arbitrary size into a hard-sphere fluid at various densities allows a quantitative check on the scaled particle interpolation formula for this probability, which is rigorously known when the added particle is either very small or very large. The simple scaled particle formula is remarkably accurate due to a favorable choice of the functional dependence of the surface tension on curvature. The biggest deviation occurs at liquid-like densities where the insertion probability is about 20% larger for larger particles, indicating a larger probability of occurrence of larger density fluctuations, and resulting in a smaller (3%) excess chemical potential than the simple theory predicts. On the other hand, at lower densities the insertion probability for large particles is slightly smaller than the theory predicts.