Named after Fritz London, this is an attractive interaction between fluctuating electric dipoles of atoms or molecules, present even without a permanent dipole. At large separation compared with atomic size in the nonretarded regime, the dipole interaction scales as and its second-order ground-state energy correction is negative and scales as . Differentiating the energy gives an attractive force of magnitude . The short-distance overlap regime and the very-long-distance retarded regime require different descriptions.
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London dispersion forces, also known as dispersion forces or van der Waals forces, are a type of weak intermolecular force that arise from temporary fluctuations in the electron distribution within molecules or atoms. These fluctuations lead to the creation of temporary dipoles, which can induce dipoles in neighboring molecules, resulting in an attractive force between them.