Determination of the exchange interaction energy from the polarization expansion of the wave function

Abstract: The exchange contribution to the energy of the hydrogen atom interacting with a proton is calculated from the polarization expansion of the wave function using the conventional surface-integral formula and two formulas involving volume integrals: the formula of the symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) and the variational formula recommended by us. At large internuclear distances $R$, all three formulas yield the correct expression $-(2/e)Re^{-R}$, but approximate it with very different convergence rates. In the case of the SAPT formula, the convergence is geometric with the error falling as $3^{-K}$, where $K$ is the order of the applied polarization expansion. The error of the surface-integral formula decreases exponentially as $a^K/(K+1)!$, where $a=\ln2 -\tfrac{1}{2}$. The variational formula performs best, its error decays as $K^{1/2} [a^{ K}/(K+1)!]^2$. These convergence rates are much faster than those resulting from approximating the wave function through the multipole expansion. This shows the efficiency of the partial resummation of the multipole series effected by the polarization expansion. Our results demonstrate also the benefits of incorporating the variational principle into the perturbation theory of molecular interactions.