Lifetime and decomposition pathways of a chemically bound helium compound

HHeF, a first predicted chemically-bound helium compound, is a metastable species that disintegrates by tunneling through energy barriers into He+HF and H+He+F. The reaction paths for these decomposition processes are calculated with single-configurational Moller-Plesset (MP2) and multiconfigurational quasidegenerate MCQDPT2/MCSCF(10,6) electronic structure methods. The lifetime of HHeF, estimated using a one-dimensional model along the minimum energy path and the semiclassical WKB approximation, is more than 120 ps, that of DHeF is 14 ns. The relatively long lifetimes are encouraging for the preparation prospects of this helium compound. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.