I googled a bit and found this,
"
Introduction
In Module 1, the need for an intermolecular potential was discussed and the Lennard Jones potential was introduced. The Lennard-Jones potentials is undoubtedly the most widely used intermolecular potential for molecular simulation. It is a simple continuous potential that provides an adequate description of intermolecular interactions for many application. Although it is treated as a pair-0wise potential, it is more accurately described as an “effective” potential and as such it does not truly represent two-body interactions but it also incorporates influence of many-body interactions albeit in a very crude and inaccurate way.
The aim of this Module is to survey intermolecular potentials and provide an awareness of alternatives to the Lennard-Jones potential.
Intermolecular Interactions
The calculation of the potential energy inevitably involves assumptions concerning the nature of attraction and repulsion between molecules. Intermolecular interaction is the result of both short and long range effects.
Electrostatic, induction, and dispersion effects are examples of long range interactions. In these cases, the energy of interaction is proportional to some inverse power of intermolecular separation. Electrostatic interactions result from the static charge distribution between molecules. The effect can be either attractive or repulsive and it is exclusively pairwise additive. Induction effectsare always attractive, resulting from the distortions caused by the molecular fields of neighbouring molecules.
However, the most important contribution is the attractive influence of dispersion arising from instantaneous fluctuations caused by electron movement. Neither induction nor dispersion are pairwise additive.
Short range interactions are characterised by an exponential decay in the interaction energy with respect to intermolecular separation. At small intermolecular separations, there is a significant overlap of the molecular wave functions causing either intermolecular exchange or repulsion. These interaction are not pairwise additive.
In theory, it is possible to calculate the intermolecular interactions from first principles. However, in practice the first principle or ab initio approach is confined to relatively simple systems. More commonly, the influence of intermolecular interaction is expressed by some type of intermolecular potential.
The justification for the intermolecular potential is often entirely empirical, although, it is possible to determine an ab initio potential during the course of a simulation.
The nature of intermolecular forces is discussed in greater detail by Stone (1996)." page 3, 4, 5 & 6.
and
"
Hard-Sphere Potential
The
simplest approximation is to treat atoms as impenetrable hard spheres, i.e.,
where
(the equation we see above in the chart. I dont know why it did not get pasted here though)
σ is the hard-sphere diameter. In a molecular simulation, special procedures are required (Allen and Tildesley, 1987) to evaluate the effect of the hard-sphere potential. These problems are more easily overcome by MC than MD. The potential remains of considerably utility as a reference for the development of hard-sphere equations of state." page 9.
*R. J. Sadus, Centre for Molecular Simulation, Swinburne University of Technology
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/ict/success/cms/documents/mod5.pdf
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I guess because Hard-Sphere model is the simplest approximation/model (hence the term "idealisation"), it would estimate the intermolecular interaction (repulsion/attraction) as all or nothing. So I guess, I was wrong about the decreasing intermolecular interaction/increasing distance part in this Hard-Sphere model.
Again, the HS model/chart above says:
-
at some close enough distance or separation, i.e. r < or = to 6, the intermolecular potential U would be infinitive, i.e. very very strong.
The chart seems to indicate that
at 6, repulsion would be the dominant force.
(My guess is that at some distance r << 6, attractive force would be the dominant force as the notes above say "At small intermolecular separations, there is a significant overlap of the molecular wave functions causing either intermolecular exchange or repulsion.")
-Likewise,
at some far enough distance, there would be no or negligible intermolecular interaction (repulsion/attraction) between the two molecules (i.e. U = 0 when r > 6).