Theory of liquid-bcc-fcc coexistence in charge-stabilized colloidal systems

We present a density-functional theory for the phase diagram of charge-stabilized colloids with bcc, fcc, and liquid phases. The theory requires inclusion of terms involving the three-body direct correlation function of the liquid, but even a simple parametrization of these terms reproduces the features of the experimental phase diagram. We make additional directly testable predictions from our theory.