Energy dependence in interatomic potentials—He2

Abstract

The energy dependence in interatomic potentials is shown to be expressible as angular momentum dependence of the potential. This means that a potential determined by scattering for a given partial wave can also be used to analyze the question of the existence of a bound state in the same partial wave. This procedure is not available for the problem of the existence of ${\mathrm{He}}_2$ because of the lack of experimental data. However, it is shown that scattering experiments of He + He have been done at sufficiently low energy so that the extrapolation of the potential in energy necessitated by its energy dependence is too small to affect the existence of the bound state.