Abstract
An analytical representation of the ground state (3 B 1) potential energy surface of CH2 is reported. All the asymptotic regions of the surface are described and the surface also has conical intersections along linear dissociations to CH + H. The surface, represented by the eigenvalue of a 2 × 2 matrix, has been obtained by the least squares fit of 226 ab initio data points, calculated by the CASSCF method, together with some spectroscopic data.