On the dissociation energy of Mg2

The bonding in the X 1Sigma(+)g state of Mg2 is investigated using near-complete valence one-particle Slater and Gaussian basis sets containing up to h functions. It is shown that the four-electron complete CI limit can be approached using a sequence of either second-order CI (SOCI) or interacting correlated fragment (ICF) calculations. At the valence level, the best estimate of the dissociation energy D(e) was 464/cm. This is a lower limit and is probably within 5/cm of the complete basis value.