An exchange-Coulomb model potential energy surface for the Ne–CO interaction. II. Molecular beam scattering and bulk gas phenomena in Ne–CO mixtures

Four potential energy surfaces are of current interest for the Ne–CO interaction. Two are high-level fully ab initio surfaces obtained a decade ago using symmetry-adapted perturbation theory and supermolecule coupled-cluster methods. The other two are very recent exchange-Coulomb (XC) model potential energy surfaces constructed by using ab initio Heitler–London interaction energies and literature long range dispersion and induction energies, followed by the determination of a small number of adjustable parameters to reproduce a selected subset of pure rotational transition frequencies for the $N20e–C12O16$ van der Waals cluster. Testing of the four potential energy surfaces against a wide range of available experimental microwave, millimeter-wave, and mid-infrared Ne–CO transition frequencies indicated that the XC potential energy surfaces gave results that were generally far superior to the earlier fully ab initio surfaces. In this paper, two XC model surfaces and the two fully ab initio surfaces are tested for their abilities to reproduce experiment for a wide range of nonspectroscopic Ne–CO gas mixture properties. The properties considered here are relative integral cross sections and the angle dependence of rotational state-to-state differential cross sections, rotational relaxation rate constants for $CO(v=2)$ in Ne–CO mixtures at $T=296K$⁠, pressure broadening of two pure rotational lines and of the rovibrational lines in the CO fundamental and first overtone transitions at 300 K, and the temperature and, where appropriate, mole fraction dependencies of the interaction second virial coefficient, the binary diffusion coefficient, the interaction viscosity, the mixture shear viscosity and thermal conductivity coefficients, and the thermal diffusion factor. The XC model potential energy surfaces give results that lie within or very nearly within the experimental uncertainties for all properties considered, while the coupled-cluster ab initio surface gives results that agree similarly well for all but one of the properties considered. When the present comparisons are combined with the ability to give accurate spectroscopic transition frequencies for the Ne–CO van der Waals complex, only the XC potential energy surfaces give results that agree well with all extant experimental data for the Ne–CO interaction.