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Abstract
A self-consistent theory is presented for the effective interactions in depletion stabilized colloidal dispersions viewed as a one-component system of macroparticles for the cases of dilute and semi-dilute polymer solutions in good solvents. The process of replacing all the interactions present in these multicomponent systems by a one-component system of macroparticles with effective interactions yields contributions to the free energy which depend on the colloid configurations, and one contribution which does not. The latter is essentially the free energy of the homogeneous polymer solution.