Separating q Nuclear and Electronic Partition Functions

In chapter 17, we suggested that the overall partition function q for a monatomic gas is 

Further, we approximated q = ijtrans were able to determine an expression for q in terms of various quantities, including the masses of the atoms and several universal constants. From that q, we were able to derive expressions for E, S, and related state functions and show that the statistical thermodynamic values for these state functions were very close to experiment (for S) or agreed with the values predicted by other theories (like = ffcT for a monatomic gas as predicted by kinetic theory, which we will consider in a later chapter). 

Does this imply that jrans the overwhelming contribution to the overall q and that all other partition functions make negligible contributions No, not for all gaseous species. This assumption worked well with monatomic gases that have all-electron-paired singlet electronic states, and have no vibrations or rotations (they are, after all, simply atoms). Vibrational and rotational partition functions don t exist for atomic species, and because most of the gases of interest have filled orbitals, no electronic states contribute substantially to the partition function (an issue we will consider in more detail later), and our approximation of q q ans very good one. 

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