A RELIABLE NEW POTENTIAL-ENERGY SURFACE FOR H-2-AR

A reliable new three-dimensional potential energy surface is obtained for the H-2-Ar system using an exchange-coulomb potential model with f ive parameters determined empirically from a least-squares fit to expe rimental data. This surface fully accounts for new high resolution IR data, virial coefficients, and vibrational transition pressure-shiftin g coefficients used in the analysis, and yields excellent predictions of elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections and hyperfine trans ition intensities not included in the analysis. Quantitative compariso ns with the best previous empirical potential and a high quality fully ab initio potential are also presented. (C) 1996 American Institute o f Physics.