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The azirinyl cation is an aromatic cyclic molecule that is isoelectronic with cyclopropenylidene, c-C3H2, and c-C3H3+. Cyclopropenylidene has been shown to be ubiquitous, existing in many different astrophysical environments. Given the similar chemistry between C and N, and the relative abundances between C and N in astrophysical environments, it is expected that there should be aromatic ringed molecules that incorporate N in the ring, but as yet, no such molecule has been identified. To address this issue, the present study uses high levels of electronic structure theory to compute a highly accurate quartic force field (QFF) for the azirinyl cation and its two lowest lying isomers, the cyanomethyl and isocyanomethyl cations. The theoretical approach uses the singles and doubles coupled-cluster method that includes a perturbative correction for connected triple excitations, CCSD(T), together with extrapolation to the one-particle basis set limit and corrections for scalar relativity and core-correlation. The QFF is then used in a second-order vibrational perturbation theory analysis (VPT2) to compute the fundamental vibrational frequencies and rovibrational spectroscopic constants for all three C2NH2+ isomers. The reliability of the VPT2 vibrational frequencies is tested by comparison to vibrational configuration interaction (VCI) calculations, and excellent agreement is found between the two approaches. Fundamental vibrational frequencies and rovibrational spectroscopic constants for all singly substituted 13C, 15N, and D isotopologues are also reported. It is expected that the highly accurate spectroscopic data reported herein will be useful in the identification of these cations in high-resolution experimental or astronomical observations.

The vibrational spectra for the HOCO radical in both of its conformers and deuterated isotopologues are shown here for the first time. Building on previous work with coupled cluster quartic force fields (QFFs) in the computation of the fundamental vibrational frequencies for both cis- and trans-HOCO, coupled cluster dipole surfaces are now provided for both HOCO conformers and their corresponding deuterated isotopologues. These surfaces and subsequent vibrational configuration interaction (VCI) computations produce the intensities of transitions into vibrational states including the fundamentals, overtones, and first few combination bands of less than 4000 cm(-1), slightly beyond the O-H stretch. Simulated spectra with an artificial full width at half-maximum broadening of 10 cm(-1) are also provided in order to aid in the characterization of HOCO's vibrational frequencies and to assist detection in various laboratory or astronomical observations.

Building on previous studies involving coupled cluster quartic force fields for the description of spectroscopic constants and vibrational frequencies of astronomically relevant molecules, this work applies the same techniques to the elucidation of such properties for the bent 1 (3)A' state of HCN and the isoelectronic 1 (3)A' HCO(+). Core correlation is treated both by explicit means and as a correction. Each approach gives closely comparable spectroscopic constants and vibrational frequencies once more, indicating that the composite method is a viable and less costly alternative. We are providing fundamental vibrational frequencies for these systems where agreement with experiment in previous studies has been within 4 cm(-1) or better. Frequencies for the first overtones and combination bands as well as various spectroscopic constants are also reported.

Besides the ν(1) O-H stretching mode at 3435 cm(-1) for HOCS(+), the fundamental vibrational frequencies for this cation and its HSCO(+) isomer have not been determined experimentally. Because these systems are analogues to HOCO(+), a detected interstellar molecule, and are believed to play an important role in reactions of OCS, which has also been detected in the interstellar medium, these cations are of importance to interstellar chemistry and reaction surface studies. This work provides the fundamental vibrational frequencies and spectroscopic constants computed with vibrational perturbation theory (VPT) at second order and the vibrational configuration interaction (VCI) method conjoined with the most accurate quartic force field (QFF) applied to date for these systems. Our computations match experiment to better than 2 cm(-1) for the known O-H stretch. Additionally, there is strong agreement in the prediction of the fundamentals across methods and choices of QFFs. The consistency in the computations and the correspondence for the known mode should give accurate reference data for the rovibrational spectra of these cations and their singly substituted isotopologues for D, (18)O, and (34)S.

A full-dimensional ab initio potential energy surface (PES) and dipole moment surface (DMS) are reported for the water dimer, (H2O)2. The CCSD(T)-PES is a very precise fit to 19,805 ab initio energies obtained with the coupled-cluster (CCSD(T)) method, using an aug-cc-pVTZ basis. The standard counterpoise correction was applied to approximately eliminate basis set superposition errors. The fit is based on an approach that incorporates the permutational symmetry of identical atoms [Huang, X.; Braams, B.; Bowman, J. M. J. Chem.Phys. 2005, 122, 044308]. The DMS is a fit to the dipole moment obtained with Møller-Plesset (MP2) theory, using an aug-cc-pVTZ basis. The PES has an RMS fitting error of 31 cm(-1) for energies below 20,000 cm(-1), relative to the global minimum. This surface can describe various internal floppy motions, including various monomer inversions, and isomerization pathways. Ten characteristic stationary points have been located on the surface, four of which are transition structures and the rest are higher order saddle points. Their geometrical and vibrational properties are presented and compared with available previous theoretical work. The CCSD(T)-PES and MP2-DMS dissociate correctly (and symmetrically) to two H2O monomers, with D(e) = 1665.7 cm(-1) (19.93 kJ/mol). Accurate quantum calculations of the zero-point energy of the dimer (using diffusion Monte Carlo) and the monomers (using a vibrational configuration interaction approach) are reported, and these together with D(e) give a value of D0 of 1042 cm(-1) (12.44 kJ/mol). A best estimated value is 1130 cm(-1) (13.5 kJ/mol).

We report an ab initio calculation of the potential surface, quantum structures, and zero-point energies of CH5+ and CH2D3+ in full dimensionality. This potential energy surface is a very precise f...