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The interaction potential energy surface (PES) of He-H[SUB2] is of great importance for quantum chemistry, as the simplest test case for interactions between a molecule and a closed-shell atom. It is also required for a detailed understanding of certain astrophysical processes--namely, collisional excitation and dissociation of H[SUB2] in molecular clouds--at densities too low to be accessible experimentally. A new set of 23 703 ab initio energies was computed for He-H[SUB2] geometries where the interaction energy was expected to be non-negligible. These have an estimated rms "random" error of ∼0.2 mhartree and a systematic error of ∼0.6 mhartree (0.4 kcal/mol). A new analytic He-H[SUB2] PES, with 112 parameters, was fitted to 20 203 of these new ab initio energies (and to an additional 4862 points generated at large separations). This yielded an improvement by better than an order of magnitude in the fit to the interaction region, relative to the best previous surfaces which were accurate only for near-equilibrium H[SUB2] molecule sizes). This new PES has an rms error of 0.95 mhartree (0.60 kcal/mol) relative to the 14 585 ab initio energies that lie below twice the H[SUB2] dissociation energy and 2.97 mhartree (1.87 kcal/mol) relative to the full set of 20 203 ab initio energies (the fitting procedure used a reduced weight for high energies, yielding a weighted rms error of 1.42 mhartree-i.e., 0.89 kcal/mol). These rms errors are comparable to the estimated error in the ab initio energies themselves; the conical intersection between the ground state and the first excited state is the largest source of error in the PES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In evaluating some low temperature (T<1000 K) thermal rate coefficients for inelastic rotational excitation of H2 by H atoms, Sun and Dalgarno have found a marked sensitivity to the potential energy surface adopted for the calculations. We have investigated the origin of the discrepancies between previous H3 potential energy surfaces and have developed a refined surface which addresses these concerns. New quasiclassical trajectory calculations of cross sections for low energy rotational excitation are reported. The refined surface is based on 8701 ab initio energies, most newly computed for this purpose. It has the same functional form as our earlier (BKMP) surface, but since the fit of the parameters is more fully constrained than for any previous surface it is a more accurate representation. The refined surface matches the ab initio energies with an overall rms error of 0.27 mEh (i.e., 0.17 kcal/mol) and a maximum absolute deviation of 6.2 mEh (for a very compact high energy equilateral triangle conformation). For ‘‘noncompact’’ conformations (no interatomic distance smaller than 1.15 bohr), the rms error is 0.18 mEh and the maximum absolute deviation is 1.7 mEh. The refined surface is compared critically to four previous surfaces, including the DMBE surface of Varandas et al., in several respects: Legendre expansion coefficients; the interaction region for low energy rotational excitation; near the collinear saddle point; near conical intersections of the ground and first excited state surfaces; the van der Waals well; and compact geometries. We have also compared new first excited state ab initio energies for 1809 conformations with corresponding predictions from the DMBE surface. © 1996 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction potential energy surface (PES) of H4 is of great importance for quantum chemistry, as a test case for molecule–molecule interactions. It is also required for a detailed understanding of certain astrophysical processes, namely, collisional excitation and dissociation of H2 in molecular clouds, at densities too low to be accessible experimentally. Accurate ab initio energies were computed for 6046 conformations of H4, using a multiple reference (single and) double excitation configuration interaction (MRD-CI) program. Both systematic and ‘‘random’’ errors were estimated to have an rms size of 0.6 mhartree, for a total rms error of about 0.9 mhartree (or 0.55 kcal/mol) in the final ab initio energy values. It proved possible to include in a self-consistent way ab initio energies calculated by Schwenke, bringing the number of H4 conformations to 6101. Ab initio energies were also computed for 404 conformations of H3; adding ab initio energies calculated by other authors yielded a total of 772 conformations of H3. (The H3 results, and an improved analytic PES for H3, are reported elsewhere.) Ab initio energies are tabulated in this paper only for a sample of H4 conformations; a full list of all 6101 conformations of H4 (and 772 conformations of H3 ) is available from Physics Auxiliary Publication Service (PAPS), or from the authors.The best existing analytic PESs for H4 are shown to be accurate only for pairs of H2 molecules with intermolecular separations greater than about 3 bohr (1.6 Å). High energy collisions (such as might lead to direct collisional dissociation) cannot be well represented by such surfaces. A more general analytic PES for H4 is required, which will be accurate for compact (high-energy) conformations and for conformations that cannot be subdivided into a pair of H2 molecules. Work in progress on devising such a surface (fitted to the 6101 conformations of this work) will be reported in a... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report ab initio calculations of the ground state energy for 404 new conformations of H3, supplementing the set of 368 conformations reported previously by others. The entire dataset has been used to constrain an analytical functional form for the potential energy surface, building on that of Truhlar and Horowitz. The new surface extends the Truhlar and Horowitz surface to higher energies and offers some modest improvement at lower energies. In addition, we have eliminated a problem with derivatives of the London equation that was pointed out by Johnson. The new surface matches the 772 ab initio energies with an overall root-mean-square (rms) error of 0.25 mhartree (i.e., 0.16 kcal/mol) and a maximum absolute deviation of 1.93 mhartree (1.21 kcal/mol); for ‘‘noncompact’’ conformations (no interatomic distance smaller than 1.15 bohr), the rms error is 0.17 mhartree (0.11 kcal/mol) and the maximum absolute deviation is 1.10 mhartree (0.69 kcal/mol). The classical barrier height for H+H2→H2+H is estimated to be 15.20±0.15 mhartree (i.e., 9.54±0.09 kcal/mol). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]