Third Virial Coefficients of Argon from First Principles

Third virial coefficients of argon have been calculated using a recent ab initio state-of-the-art pair potential and a new ab initio three-body potential. The theoretical results have been compared with experimental data in the range of temperatures from 130 to 673 K. The comparison reveals an excellent agreement between the theoretical and the newest experimental results: For all considered temperatures, differences between the theoretical and the experimental values are within uncertainties of the experimental data. The theoretical third virial coefficients reported in this work are also compared with those obtained using alternative theoretical approaches.