Two new fundamental papers were published recently. First, one about noble gases where we were able to fit very accurate quantum chemistry data, and in combination with a three-body potential, could reproduce melting points for crystals. Since the interactions are weak this is quite a feat! The paper also investigates combination rules and analytical potentials for Van der Waals interactions.
Second, we studied the anisotropy in exchange interactions by probing hydrogen halides and water with a Helium atom. This showed that there is considerable anisotropy due to sigma-holes, both on halides and on water. The image below shows the lone-pairs in green and the sigma-holes in blue.
