The freezing transition of a hard sphere fluid subject to the Percus-Yevick approximation

A classical density functional theory is applied to the calculation of the fluid-solid transition for hard spheres, using the Percus-Yevick (PY) direct correlation function. Three algebraic conditions are established for the coexistence densities and the Lindemann parameter. The terms neglected in the present analysis are small and the present theory, in our eyes, is essentially an exact solution given the PY approximation. No fluid-solid transition is found for the bcc lattice, whereas for expanded fcc lattices, the agreement with previous density functional theory-based theories is good. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.