Many‐body symmetry‐adapted perturbation theory of intermolecular interactions. H2O and HF dimers

A many‐body version of the symmetry‐adapted perturbation theory is developed for a direct calculation of intermolecular potentials as a sum of the electrostatic, exchange, induction, and dispersion contributions. Since no multipole expansion is used, the obtained interaction energy components are properly dampened at short distance by the charge‐overlap (penetration) effects. The influence of the intramonomer correlation is accounted for by the perturbation expansion in terms of the Mo/ller–Plesset type fluctuation potentials WA and WB for the individual molecules. For the electrostatic and for the dispersion energy, the terms of the zeroth, first, and second order in WA+WB are considered. In this way, the leading three‐particle correlation contribution to the dispersion energy is taken into account. As a test of our method, we have performed calculations of the interaction energy for the water and hydrogen fluoride dimers. Both the geometry and the basis set dependence of the interaction energy component...