Eur. Phys. J. D 45, 147-153 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00263-3

Interactions of lanthanide atoms: Comparative ab initio study of YbHe, Yb ₂ and TmHe, TmYb potentials

¹ Department of Chemistry, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119992, Russia
² Faculty of Chemistry, Warsaw University, Pasteura 1, 03-093 Warszawa, Poland
³ Department of Chemistry, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, 48309, USA

Corresponding author: ^a alexei@classic.chem.msu.su

Received: 13 September 2006
Revised: 17 October 2006
Published online: 8 December 2006

Abstract

The results of high-level ab initio calculations are reported for the interatomic potentials describing YbHe, Yb₂, TmHe and TmYb van der Waals interactions. It is found that the interaction properties of Tm and Yb are very similar and the interaction anisotropy in the TmHe and TmYb complexes is very small. We analyze the long-range behavior of the isotropic and anisotropic interaction potentials and discuss some implications for cold and ultracold atomic collisions of the lanthanide atoms.