Closed-shell interaction in silver and gold chlorides

Hartree–Fock and coupled-cluster calculations have been performed for cubic AgCl and for AuCl having a cubic or the observed structure with space group I41/amd. Cohesive energies and lattice constants are in excellent agreement with experiment for AgCl; for AuCl we find good agreement, and the experimental structure is correctly predicted to be lower in energy than the cubic one. Electron-correlation effects on lattice constants are very large, of up to 0.8 Å for cubic AuCl. We especially discuss the strength of the closed-shell interactions, and for the first time a quantitative analysis of the so-called “aurophilic” Au(I)–Au(I) interaction is presented in solids.