Weeks-Chandler-Andersen perturbation theory

The Weeks-Chandler-Andersen perturbation theory is based on the following decomposition of the intermolecular pair potential (in particular, the Lennard-Jones potential):

The reference system pair potential is given by (Eq, 4):

$\Phi _{\rm {repulsive}}(r)=\left\{{\begin{array}{ll}\Phi _{\rm {LJ}}(r)+\epsilon &{\rm {if}}\;r<2^{1/6}\sigma \\0&{\rm {if}}\;r\geq 2^{1/6}\sigma \end{array}}\right.$

and the perturbation potential is given by (Eq, 5 Ref. 1):

$\Phi _{\rm {attractive}}(r)=\left\{{\begin{array}{ll}-\epsilon &{\rm {if}}\;r<2^{1/6}\sigma \\\Phi _{\rm {LJ}}(r)&{\rm {if}}\;r\geq 2^{1/6}\sigma \end{array}}\right.$

Colloids

The repulsive component of the WCA decomposition has been used as a model for colloids .