Abstract
Electronic momentum distributions and Compton profiles have been calculated for a number of small polyatomic molecules in the STO NG (N = 3,4,5,6) approximation. The gaussian expansions converge rapidly and give acceptable approximations to the corresponding STO values for most momentum space properties. However, the gaussians underestimate both the very low and very high momentum components of the distribution, and in the latter case the error may be quite significant even for large N.