Thermodynamically consistent integral equation for soft repulsive spheres

We present a new closure relation that is an extension of the thermodynamically consistent approximation of Rogers and Young [Phys. Rev. A 30, 999 (1984)]. In the proposed closure, we introduce a nonlinear term along with an additional thermodynamic consistency equation. We compare some thermodynamic and structural properties obtained within our scheme with the corresponding results emerging from other approaches that include numerical simulations and other closure approximations. For the systems considered here, the results derived from our scheme are in better agreement with the reference values of the simulations. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.