Fluid-fluid and fluid-solid transitions in the Kern-Frenkel model from Barker-Henderson thermodynamic perturbation theory

We study the Kern-Frenkel model for patchy colloids using Barker-Henderson second-order thermodynamic perturbation theory. The model describes a fluid where hard sphere particles are decorated with one patch, so that they interact via a square-well potential if they are sufficiently close one another, and if patches on each particle are properly aligned. Both the gas-liquid and fluid-solid phase coexistences are computed and contrasted against corresponding Monte Carlo simulations results. We find that the perturbation theory describes rather accurately numerical simulations all the way from a fully covered square-well potential down to the Janus limit (half coverage). In the region where numerical data are not available (from Janus to hard-spheres), the method provides estimates of the location of the critical lines that could serve as a guideline for further efficient numerical work at these low coverages. A comparison with other techniques, such as integral equation theory, highlights the important aspect of this methodology in the present context. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3689308]