  In this article we review the thermodynamics of liquids in the framework of
the inherent structure formalism. We then present calculations of the
distribution of the basins in the potential energy of a binary Lennard-Jones
mixture as a function of temperature. The comparison between the numerical data
and the theoretical formalism allows us to evaluate the degeneracy of the
inherent structures in a bulk system and to estimate the energy of the lowest
energy disordered state (the Kauzmann energy). We find that, around the
mode-coupling temperature, the partition function of the liquid is approximated
well by the product of two loosely coupled partition functions, one depending
on the inherent structures quantities (depth of the basins and their
degeneracy) and one describing the free energy of the liquid constrained in one
typical basin.
