A New Approach to Calculating the Potential Energy of Interaction between Two Atoms

Resumo

A Fourier component of the potential energy of interaction between two atoms has been presented as a polynomial of the biquadratic atomic form factor. A numerical calculation has been performed in the screened Coulomb potential approximation. It is demonstrated that the account for the Pauli principle leads to the occurrence of a potential barrier and an additional region of attraction of two atoms. This model is shown to agree qualitatively with the results of the density-functional-theory calculation.