A van der Waals free energy in electrolytes revisited
Abstract
Description
A system of three electrolytes separated by two parallel planes is considered. Each region is described by a dielectric constant and a Coulomb fluid in the Debye-Hückel regime. In their book Dispersion Forces, Mahanty and Ninham have given the van der Waals free energy of this system. We rederive this free energy by a different method, using linear response theory and the electrostatic Maxwell stress tensor for obtaining the dispersion force.
7 pages. PACS numbers updated. References updated
7 pages. PACS numbers updated. References updated