Interaction potentials for Li+—rare-gas systems

The accuracies of proposed interaction potentials for the Li⁺—rare-gas systems are tested by comparing the transport coefficients calculated from the potentials with the experimental values. The agreement is generally good for theoretical potentials that take electron correlation into account and for potentials inferred from ion-beam measurements of high accuracy, except where the transport data are primarily influenced by the long-range tail of the potential. The transport data are also used to directly determine the Li⁺—rare-gas interaction potentials, with an estimated accuracy of 10% over wide ranges of ion—atom separation.