Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 68, Nos. 5/6, 1992. p. 1037-1063.
Two models of one-dimensional fluids of associating hard rods in an arbitrary external field are investigated. In the first model particles can only form dimers, while in the second model, which has been solved previously by Percus, aggregates of any size coexist. In both cases the grand canonical potential and the external potential are found exactly as functionals of the density. It is shown that Wertheim's thermodynamic perturbation theory of polymerization provides a straightforward route to the exact solution by expanding the functional space to include more density parameters. This suggests that Wertheim's theory should be used also for studying the structure (and not only the thermodynamics) of real associating fluids.