DEVELOPMENT OF A THREE-DIMENSIONAL AB INITIO POTENTIAL ENERGY SURFACE FOR THE He–Cl2(X) SYSTEM AND ITS APPLICATION TO SOLVATION STRUCTURES IN THE HenCl2 CLUSTERS

Abstract

High-quality ab initio electronic structure calculations for the van der Waals interaction of He with Cl 2 in the electronic ground state have been carried out to develop a new three-dimensional potential energy surface for this system. The calculations were performed at the single and double excitation coupled-cluster level of theory with non-iterative perturbational treatment of triple excitations [CCSD(T)] with a very large basis set including an additional set of bond functions. The analytical potential surface developed were then used in the path-integral molecular dynamics calculations for the He n Cl 2 cluster, where quantum solvation structures of helium atoms in clusters were investigated. It has been found that the helium solvation structures are quite different between the electronic ground state and the electronically excited B 3Π state.