Ornstein-Zernike relation from the grand canonical distribution function
Defining the local activity by
where , and is the Boltzmann constant. Using those definitions the grand canonical partition function can be written as
- .
By functionally-differentiating with respect to , and utilizing the mathematical theorem concerning the functional derivative,
- ,
we get the following equations with respect to the density pair correlation functions.
- ,
- .
A relation between and can be obtained after some manipulation as,
Now, we define the direct correlation function by an inverse relation of the previous equation,
- Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_") reported: "Cannot get mml. Server problem."): {\displaystyle {\delta \ln z(r) \over {\delta \rho (r')}}={\delta (r-r') \over {\rho (r')}}-c(r,r').}
Inserting these two reults into the chain-rule theorem of functional derivatives,
- Failed to parse (Conversion error. Server ("https://wikimedia.org/api/rest_") reported: "Cannot get mml. Server problem."): {\displaystyle \int {\delta \rho (r) \over {\delta \ln z(r^{\prime \prime })}}{\delta \ln z(r^{\prime \prime }) \over {\delta \rho (r')}}dr^{\prime \prime }=\delta (r-r')} ,
one obtains the Ornstein-Zernike relation.
Thus the Ornstein-Zernike relation is,
in a sense, a differential form of the partition function.