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Updated: Mar 22, 2026

Computation of Atmospheric Concentrations of Molecular Clusters from ab initio Thermochemistry
Published on: April 8, 2020
(4)He Thermophysical Properties: New Ab Initio Calculations
1National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8360.
Abstract:
Since 2000, atomic physicists have reduced the uncertainty of the helium-helium "ab initio" potential; for example, from approximately 0.6 % to 0.1 % at 4 bohr, and from 0.8 % to 0.1 % at 5.6 bohr. These results led us to: (1) construct a new inter-atomic potential ϕ 07, (2) recalculate values of the second virial coefficient, the viscosity, and the thermal conductivity of (4)He from 1 K to 10,000 K, and (3), analyze the uncertainties of the thermophysical properties that propagate from the uncertainty of ϕ 07 and from the Born-Oppenheimer approximation of the electron-nucleon quantum mechanical system. We correct minor errors in a previous publication [J. J. Hurly and M. R. Moldover, J. Res. Nat. Inst. Standards Technol. 105, 667 (2000)] and compare our results with selected data published after 2000. The ab initio results tabulated here can serve as standards for the measurement of thermophysical properties.
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