The nature of interactions in uracil dimer: An ab initio study

The intermolecular interaction energy components for the stacked uracil dimer have been evaluated at the MP2 level of theory using the variational–perturbational intermolecular interaction energy decomposition scheme. It was observed that the dispersion and electrostatic components are most dominant contributions to the stabilization energy. The former component does not exhibit the dependence on the mutual orientation of the uracil monomers, while for the latter strong directional variations have been found.