Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-3-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2a/section-a/17/b/solution
Past exam of the chemistry course of the year 3 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 2A Section A 17 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-20
At this separation the orbital overlap and interatomic two-electron exchange integrals are negligible. Each localized electron then contributes essentially the isolated hydrogen energy, while the interatomic electrostatic terms cancel to leading order for neutral fragments. Including nuclear repulsion in the molecular energy givesThe closed-shell RHF determinant instead doubly occupies . It retains ionic configurations with both electrons on the same atom, even at dissociation. Using atomic units and the Hartree energy in the stated unrelaxed hydrogenic 1s basis, the same-atom two-electron Coulomb integral is . Consequently at infinite separationwhere energies and integrals inside the first expression are in atomic units. It is much too high compared with two neutral atoms. Retaining the leading intersite Coulomb term at gives , still about above UHF. The numerical RHF estimates specify the supplied fixed 1s basis; a larger optimized orbital space changes them. If nuclear repulsion is excluded by an electronic-energy convention, subtract the same from both quoted total molecular energies. The restricted/unrestricted comparison and their dissociation behaviour are unchanged.[ref]
XXXIV. Notes on the molecular orbital treatment of the hydrogen molecule by Charles Alfred Coulson and Inga Fischer-Hjalmars. 1949, pp. 386–393, minimal atomic-1s molecular-orbital treatment
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