Abstract
The binding of the noble gas dimers is examined using a theory in which the Hartree–Fock interaction energy is augmented with both a short-range correlation term derived from the theory of a uniform electron-gas plus a dispersion energy damped according to the theory of Jabobi and Csanak. The good agreement between the predicted and experimental binding energies and equilibrium inter-nuclear separations confirms that this approach captures the essential physics of the interaction. A review of other methods confirms the previously reported failures of density functional theory. A further survey shows that fully ab initio variational methods must be taken to the very refined level of coupled cluster theory with a large quadruple or quintuple zeta basis set if they are to achieve greater accuracy than the approach presented here.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank the Leverhulme foundation for partial financial support.