Integral equations, PRISM/RISM

If each polymer is modeled as being composed of N beads (or sites) and the interaction potential between polymers can be written as the sum of site-site interactions, then generalizations of the OZ equation to polymers are possible. One approach is the polymer reference interaction site model (PRISM) theory [90] (based on the RISM theory [91]) which results in a nonlinear integral equation given by... 

Integral equation ideas on the structure of monatomic liquids were first modified and applied to molecular liquids by Chandler and Andersen, Their classic work is now referred to as the reference interaction site model (RISM) of molecular liquids. Polymer RISM (PRISM) is essentially an extension of RISM theory that successfully describes the structure of flexible polymer chains in the liquid state. 

The intra-chain pair density functions obtained from both the bulk simulation and the continuous unperturbed chains were used as input to the polymer-RISM integral equation for estimating the intermolecular pair distribution function g(r) (using a soft-Percus Yevick closure). We found that PRISM underpredicts the first peak in g(r), while also overpredicting the steefmess of the rise to the first peak. 

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