Simulating asymmetric colloidal mixture with adhesive hard sphere model

Monte Carlo simulation and Percus-Yevick (PY) theory are used to investigate the structural properties of a two-component system of the Baxter adhesive fluids with the size asymmetry of the particles of both components mimicking an asymmetric binary colloidal mixture. The radial distribution functions for all possible species pairs, g(11)(r), g(22)(r), and g(12)(r), exhibit discontinuities at the interparticle distances corresponding to certain combinations of n and m values (n and m being integers) in the sum n sigma(1)+m sigma(2) (sigma(1) and sigma(2) being the hard-core diameters of individual components) as a consequence of the impulse character of 1-1, 2-2, and 1-2 attractive interactions. In contrast to the PY theory, which predicts the delta function peaks in the shape of g(ij)(r) only at the distances which are the multiple of the molecular sizes corresponding to different linear structures of successively connected particles, the simulation results reveal additional peaks at intermediate distances originating from the formation of rigid clusters of various geometries. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.