AbstractsThe evaluation of interatomic interactions at large separations ( R ) typically involves neglecting electron exchange, treating the Coulomb interaction between atoms as a perturbation, neglecting third-and higher-order energy contributions, and approximating the Coulomb interaction by a short expansion in spherical harmonics and, usually, powers of R -I . This last approximation, using an approximate perturbing Hamiltonian to evaluate a second-order perturbed energy, is examined here; error bounds and a simple correction are introduced. Three illustrative applications to the H-H+ interaction are given: the error incurred by truncating the spherical-harmonic expansion is bounded, the R expansion is corrected for the overlap of the "atomic" charge distributions, and the R expansion is analyzed to see why it works as well as it does.Dans I'evaluation des interactions interatomiques a grandes separations ( R ), on nkglige