Intermolecular Forces

This book provides a definitive account of our present understanding of the forces between molecules. It deals with both the origins of such forces and their quantitative determination using a combination of theoretical and experimental techniques. The book brings together detailed treatments of both the traditional approaches which relate the bulk properties of matter to the intermolecular potential and more recently developed methods based upon scattering and spectroscopic techniques. The topics considered include the study of gas imperfections, the transport properties of gases, the properties of condensed phases, molecular beam studies of elastic and inelastic scattering, and the spectroscopy of van der Waals molecules. The application of quantum mechanical theory to the accurate evaluation of intermolecular forces is also covered. Particular emphasis is placed upon the way in which information from these complementary techniques has been combined to yield complete and accurate intermolecular potentials for simple molecules. A critical survey is given of the potential functions which have emerged from monatomic and simple polyatomic molecules.
Attention is also given to the directions of future developments for more complex molecules. As well as providing an up-to-date account of the subject for established research workers, sufficient background material is included to make the book useful for those encountering the subject for the first time. In addition, the text is a good reference source containing extensive tabulations of modern potential functions, virial coefficients and transport and listings of useful computer programs. This is a work for all those working in the fields of intermolecular forces and the molecular theory of matter, and graduates and researchers in physical chemistry, chemical physics, and chemical engineering.