STRUCTURE FACTOR OF LIQUID ALKALI-METALS BY THE INTEGRAL-EQUATION THEORY

The pair correlation function g(r) and the structure factor S(q) of liquid alkali metals are calculated using an integral equation developed by Madden and Rice, which is based on the soft core mean spherical approximation. It is found that this closure relation is particularly well adapted to the treatment of the Friedel oscillations of the pair potential, which are seen to be most influential in determining the peculiarities of S(q). A good agreement is obtained with experimental data for Na and Li.