VAN DER WAALS INTERACTIONS BETWEEN TWO HYDROGEN ATOMS: THE SLATER-KIRKWOOD METHOD REVISITED

We examine a technique of Slater and Kirkwood [Phys. Rev., 37 (1931), 682] which provides an exact resolution of the asymptotic behavior of the van der Waals attraction between two hydrogen atoms. We modify their technique to make the problem more tractable analytically and more easily solvable by numerical methods. Moreover, we prove rigorously that this approach provides an exact solution for the asymptotic electron correlation. The proof makes use of recent results [Anapolitanos, On van der Waals Forces, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto, 2011] (see also [Anapolitanos and Sigal, Long Range Behaviour of van der Waals Force, arXiv.org, 2013]. We provide visual representations of the asymptotic electron correlation (entanglement) based on the use of Laguerre approximations.