A potential energy surface is generally used within the adiabatic or Born-Oppenheimer approximation in quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics to model chemical reactions and interactions in simple chemical and physical systems. There is a natural correspondence between potential energy surfaces as they exist (as polynomial surfaces) and their application in potential theory, which associates and studies harmonic functions in relation to these surfaces.

For example, the Morse potential and the simple harmonic potential well are common one-dimensional potential energy surfaces (potential energy curves) in applications of quantum chemistry and physics.

Quantum mechanicsPotential theory | Quantum chemistry

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