Answer to Question #148772 in Mechanics | Relativity for Sneha

Question

What is surface potential energy.

Answer 1

A potential energy surface (PES) describes the energy of a system, especially a collection of atoms, in terms of certain parameters, normally the positions of the atoms. The surface might define the energy as a function of one or more coordinates; if there is only one coordinate, the surface is called a potential energy curve or energy profile. An example is the Morse/Long-range potensial.

Mathematical definition and computation.

The geometry of a set of atoms can be described by a vector, r, whose elements represent the atom positions. The vector r could be the set of the Cartesian coordinates of the atoms, or could also be a set of inter-atomic distances and angles.

Given r, the energy as a function of the positions, E(r), is the value of E(r) for all r of interest. Using the landscape analogy from the introduction, E gives the height on the "energy landscape" so that the concept of a potential energy surface arises.

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