The interaction between two atoms in states with nonzero electronic orbital angular momenta is anisotropic and can be represented by a spherical tensor expansion. The authors derive expressions for the first order (electrostatic) and second order (dispersion and induction) anisotropic interaction coefficients in terms of the multipole moments and dynamic polarizabilities of the atoms and show that a complete description of the second order interaction requires odd rank or "out-of-phase" polarizabilities. The authors relate the tensorial expansion coefficients to the adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer potentials of the molecule and show that there are linear, and in some cases nonlinear, constraints on the van der Waals coefficients of these potentials. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.