Transport Properties and Potential Energy Models for Monatomic Gases

Abstract

Abstract The first two chapters of this work are an update and outgrowth of the monograph Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Polyatomic Gases published in 1990 by OUP, and a response to considerable improvements in the experimental determination of the transport properties of dilute gases that have taken place during the past 30 years. The derivation and solution of the Boltzmann equation for dilute monatomic gases has been presented. The experimental determination has improved sufficiently that it has become necessary to carry out calculations at the level of the second Chapman–Cowling approximation in order to give computed results that lie within the current experimental uncertainties now being reported. Chapter 3 is devoted to realistic interatomic potential energy functions and begins with a discussion of the need for more accurate representations of these functions. It discusses in detail both direct inversion of both microscopic (spectroscopic transition frequencies and atomic beam scattering) and bulk property (pressure and acoustic second virial coefficients, transport properties) data. It covers the quantum chemical ab initio determination of binary atomic interaction energies and their analytical representation, followed by detailed considerations of the interaction energies between pairs of noble gas atoms. This book is concerned with comparison between theory and experiment, and it discusses the pure noble gases and binary mixtures in detail. There is also a special chapter that focuses upon how to obtain the spectroscopic and thermophysical properties of a specific molecular system theoretically step by step and provides a reference for the specific theoretical calculation work.