Three-dimensional ab initio potential energy surface for H-CO(X̃(2)A').

We present an ab initio potential for the H-CO(X̃(2)A') complex in which the CO bond length is varied and the long-range interactions between H and CO are accurately represented. It was computed using the spin-unrestricted open-shell single and double excitation coupled cluster method with perturbative triples [RHF-UCCSD(T)]. Three doubly augmented correlation-consistent basis sets were utilized to extrapolate the correlation energy to the complete basis set limit. More than 4400 data points were calculated and used for an analytic fit of the potential: long-range terms with inverse power dependence on the H-CO distance R were fit to the data points for large R, the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) method was applied to the data at smaller distances. Our potential was compared with previous calculations and with some data extracted from spectroscopy. Furthermore, it was used in three-dimensional discrete variable representation (DVR) calculations of the vibrational frequencies and rotational constants of HCO, which agree very well with the most recently measured data. Also the dissociation energy D0 = 0.623 eV of HCO into H + CO obtained from these calculations agrees well with experimental values. Finally, we made preliminary two-dimensional (2D) calculations of the cross sections for rotationally inelastic H-CO collisions with the CO bond length fixed and obtained good agreement with recently published 2D results.