Morse potential

Computational physics
Mechanics Electromagnetics Multiphysics Particle physics Thermodynamics Simulation
Potentials Morse/Long-range potential Lennard-Jones potential Yukawa potential Morse potential
Fluid dynamics Finite difference Finite volume Finite element Boundary element Lattice Boltzmann Riemann solver Dissipative particle dynamics Smoothed particle hydrodynamics Turbulence models
Monte Carlo methods Integration Gibbs sampling Metropolis algorithm
Particle N-body Particle-in-cell Molecular dynamics
Scientists Godunov Ulam von Neumann Galerkin Lorenz Wilson Alder Richtmyer
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The Morse potential, named after physicist Philip M. Morse, is a convenient interatomic interaction model for the potential energy of a diatomic molecule. It is a better approximation for the vibrational structure of the molecule than the quantum harmonic oscillator because it explicitly includes the effects of bond breaking, such as the existence of unbound states. It also accounts for the anharmonicity of real bonds and the non-zero transition probability for overtone and combination bands. The Morse potential can also be used to model other interactions such as the interaction between an atom and a surface. Due to its simplicity (only three fitting parameters), it is not used in modern spectroscopy. However, its mathematical form inspired the MLR (Morse/Long-range) potential, which is the most popular potential energy function used for fitting spectroscopic data.