Thermodynamic self-consistency in the variational thermodynamic calculation for liquid metals

The importance of thermodynamic self-consistency imposed on a reference fluid in the Gibbs-Bogoliubov variational calculation is re-visited. Following the recent work of Bratkovsky [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 1 (1989) 3453], and choosing the one-component-plasma fluid as a reference, the role of thermodynamic self-consistency is investigated by comparing two sets of Monte Carlo data [G.S. Stringfellow, H.E. DeWitt and W.L. Slattery, Phys. Rev. A41 (1990) 1105]. It is found that accurate computer simulation data can be used with great advantage to achieve thermodynamic self-consistency for the reference liquid and hence to account quantitatively for the thermodynamics and structure in a liquid metallic system.