  Weak limits as the density tends to infinity of classical ground states of
integrable pair potentials are shown to minimize the mean-field energy
functional. By studying the latter we derive global properties of high-density
ground state configurations in bounded domains and in infinite space. Our main
result is a theorem stating that for interactions having a strictly positive
Fourier transform the distribution of particles tends to be uniform as the
density increases, while high-density ground states show some pattern if the
Fourier transform is partially negative. The latter confirms the conclusion of
earlier studies by Vlasov (1945), Kirzhnits and Nepomnyashchii (1971), and
Likos et al. (2007). Other results include the proof that there is no Bravais
lattice among high-density ground states of interactions whose Fourier
transform has a negative part and the potential diverges or has a cusp at zero.
We also show that in the ground state configurations of the penetrable sphere
model particles are superposed on the sites of a close-packed lattice.
