00544 IUPAC Gold Book - avoided crossing 10.1351/goldbook.A00544 A00544 current 1 Frequently, two Born–Oppenheimer electronic states (A, B) change their energy order as molecular geometry (x) is changed continuously along a path. In the process their energies may become equal at some points (the surfaces are said to cross, dotted lines in the figure), or only come relatively close (the crossing of the surfaces is said to be avoided). If the electronic states are of the same symmetry, the surface crossing is always avoided in diatomics and usually avoided in polyatomics. Synonymous with intended crossing. intended crossing https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/I03071 surface crossing https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/S06166 PAC, 1996, 68, 2223. 'Glossary of terms used in photochemistry (IUPAC Recommendations 1996)' on page 2229 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199668122223) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/A00544/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/A00544/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/A00544/plain Citation: 'avoided crossing' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.A00544 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-05-28T17:48:19+00:00