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The hydrogen pair correlation function of liquid water has been measured by time-of-flight neutron diffraction. The isotope substitution technique has been used to cancel the problematic hydrogen incoherent and inelastic scattering without introducing a dynamical model of the liquid. The results are in remarkable agreement with computer simulations of water using model potentials, although the short-range structure is more tightly coordinated than predicted.
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Soper et al. (1982) studied this question.
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