The determination of the intermolecular potential energy function of neon from spectroscopic, equilibrium and transport data

Abstract

The vacuum u.v. absorption spectrum of the neon dimer is analysed using the Rydberg-Klein-Rees method to give information about the groundstate potential energy curve. The width of the potential energy well as a function of its depth and the dissociation energy of Ne₂ are determined, and compared with the values of recently proposed potentials. New methods for the direct determination of potential energy functions from second virial coefficient and dilute gas viscosity measurements are applied to the data for neon. In conjunction with theoretical calculations and high energy molecular beam data, these results are used to characterize an intermolecular pair potential energy function for neon which is shown to be consistent with the properties of gaseous neon over a wide range of temperature.