State of the art for ab initio vs empirical potentials for predicting 6e⁻ excited state molecular energies: Application to Li₂left(b,1³Pi_(u)right)

We build the first analytic empirical potential for the most deeply bound $\mbox{Li}_{2}$ state: $b\left(1^{3}\Pi_{u}\right)$. Our potential is based on experimental energy transitions covering $v=0-34$, and very high precision theoretical long-range constants. It provides high accuracy predictions up to $v=100$ which pave the way for high-precision long-range measurements, and hopefully an eventual resolution of the age old discrepancy between experiment and theory for the $\mbox{Li}\left(2^{2}S\right)+\mbox{Li}\left(2^{2}P\right)$ $C_{3}$ value. State of the art ab initio calculations predict vibrational energy spacings that are all in at most 0.8 cm$^{-1}$ disagreement with the empirical potential.