We carried out extensive canonical Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the dipolar hard-sphere (DHS) fluid, with $N=1024\mathrm{}$ particles at fixed reduced density ${\rho }^{*}=0.05,$ in order to investigate the chainlike structure that occurs at low densities, for sufficiently large reduced dipole moments ${\mu }^{*}.$ The dissociation and recombination of chains during equilibrium runs suggest an analogy between the DHS’s and a system of living polymers. This was checked quantitatively by comparing the results of the simulations with those of a theory for living polymers taking into account the indistinguishability of the particles in self-assembled chains. Quantitative agreement between theoretical and simulated mean chain lengths and number of monomers, was found for particular choices of the parameters used in the working definition of the MC chains.

• Received 5 November 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.59.4388