A model system for examining the radial distribution function

The radial distribution function provides a means of characterizing an amorphous material and is a measure of the spatial distribution of a system of particles. We introduce an experiment suitable for the undergraduate laboratory that illustrates the meaning and application of the radial distribution function to a two-dimensional system of hard spheres comprised of varying area fractions. Larger area fractions lead to an increase in the correlation length and the magnitude of the underlying particle-particle correlations. (C) 2004 American Association of Physics Teachers.