The energy versus separation for a diatomic molecule in the LCAO approach found that a bonding wave function gave a deep minimum in the potential energy, leading to an equilibrium state. The antibonding wave function has no minimum in the energy-separation curve. Explain - qualitatively - what the charge distribution (or 1912 distribution if you like) looks like for the bonding and anti-bonding configurations, and why the bonding configuration is more stable. That is: where is the electron density, and why is it there?

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The energy versus separation for a diatomic molecule in the LCAO approach found that a bonding wave function gave a deep minimum in the potential energy, leading to an equilibrium state. The antibonding wave function has no minimum in the energy-separation curve. Explain - qualitatively - what the charge distribution (or 1912 distribution if you like) looks like for the bonding and anti-bonding configurations, and why the bonding configuration is more stable. That is: where is the electron density, and why is it there?

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