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<p>Despite its apparent simplicity, water displays unique behavior across the phase diagram which
is strictly related to the ability of the water molecules to form dense, yet dynamic, hydrogen-
bond networks that continually fluctuate in time and space. The competition between different
local hydrogen-bonding environments has been hypothesized as a possible origin of the anomalous properties of liquid water. Through a systematic application of the many-body expansion
of the total energy, we demonstrate that the local structure of liquid water at room temperature is determined by a delicate balance between two-body and three-body energies, which is
further modulated by higher-order many-body effects. Besides providing fundamental insights
into the structure of liquid water, this analysis also emphasizes that a correct representation
of two-body and three-body energies requires sub-chemical accuracy that is nowadays only
achieved by many-body models rigorously derived from the many-body expansion of the total energy, which thus hold great promise for shedding light on the molecular origin of the
anomalous behavior of liquid water.
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