Is xenon an "ennobled" alkane?

Recent studies on liquid mixtures involving xenon and the light n-alkanes have revealed that, in many ways, xenon behaves like a member of the n-alkane family. The observed behaviour can be interpreted at the molecular level in terms of size and intermolecular potential. In this work the extension of this analogy to other microscopic and macroscopic properties is discussed. Furthermore, this behaviour is confirmed by the anaesthetic power of xenon relatively to those of the n-alkanes. We believe that this result might contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of anaesthesia at the molecular level.