Mayer f-function

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The Mayer f-function is an auxiliary function that often appears in the series expansion of thermodynamical quantities related to classical many-particle systems.

[edit] Definition

Consider a system of classical particles interacting through a pair-wise potential

$V(\mathbf{i},\mathbf{j})$

where the bold labels $\mathbf{i}$ and $\mathbf{j}$ denote the continuous degrees of freedom associated with the particles e.g.

$\mathbf{i}=\mathbf{r}_i$

for spherically symmetric particles and

$\mathbf{i}=(\mathbf{r}_i,\Omega_i)$

for rigid non-spherical particles where $\mathbf{r}$ denotes position and $Ω$ the orientation parametrized e.g. by Euler angles. The Mayer f-function is then defined as