Abstract
Near-critical thermodynamics in the hard-sphere (1, 1) electrolyte is well described, at a classical level, by Debye-Hückel (DH) theory with ion pairing and dipolar-pair-ionic-fluid coupling. But DH-based theories do not address density fluctuations. Here density correlations are obtained by functional differentiation of DH theory generalized to nonuniform densities of various species. The correlation length diverges universally at low density as (correcting the generalized mean-spherical approximation). When one has as , where the amplitudes compare informatively with experimental data.
- Received 20 December 1995
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2906
©1996 American Physical Society