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The structures and the vibrational dynamics of the complexes HHe are investigated experimentally (via mass spectrometry (MS)) and at high levels of electronic-structure theory. The MS measurements reveal interesting trends about the stability of the starting members of the HHe family. The computations establish that the basically linear, strongly bound, symmetric triatomic molecular ion He(H)He, with an equilibrium H-He distance of 0.925 angstrom and about 2/3 but at least 1/2 of the positive charge on H, is the molecular core of all of the complexes. Definitive quantum-chemical results are obtained for HHe and HHe, including the proton affinity of He (computed to be cm(-1) via the focal-point analysis (FPA) scheme), the FPA isomerisation energy between the two linear isomers of HHe ( cm(-1)), and the dissociation energy of the HHe HHe + He reaction, with an FPA estimate of cm(-1). The structural isomers of the He-solvated complexes are discussed up to n=18. A useful notation, [k-l-m]-HHe, is introduced to characterise qualitatively the three possible belts around the He-H-He core in HHe (), where l denotes the number of He atoms in the central belt and denote the number of He atoms in the top and bottom belts. Capping He atoms attached to the belts can be indicated by sub- and superscripts. Several possible indicators of microscopic superfluidity are investigated: He evaporation energies, rotational constants, and vibrational fundamentals. [GRAPHICS] .

One-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) models are investigated, which help to understand the unusual rovibrational energy-level structure of the astronomically relevant and chemically interesting astructural molecular ion H+5. Due to the very low hindering barrier characterising the 1D torsion-only vibrational model of H+5, this model yields strongly divergent energy levels. The results obtained using a realistic model for the torsion potential, including the computed (near) degeneracies, can be rationalised in terms of the model with no barrier. Coupling of the torsional motion with a single rotational degree of freedom is also investigated in detail. It is shown how the embedding-dependent rovibrational models yield energy levels that can be rationalised via the 2D vibrational model containing two independent torsions. Insight into the complex rovibrational energy level structure of the models and of H+5 is gained via variational nuclear motion and diffusion Monte Carlo computations and by the an...

A hybrid variational–perturbational nuclear motion algorithm based on the perturbative treatment of the Coriolis coupling terms of the Eckart–Watson kinetic energy operator following a variational treatment of the rest of the operator is described. The algorithm has been implemented in the quantum chemical code DEWE. Performance of the hybrid treatment is assessed by comparing selected numerically exact variational vibration-only and rovibrational energy levels of the C2H4, C2D4, and CH4 molecules with their perturbatively corrected counterparts. For many of the rotational–vibrational states examined, numerical tests reveal excellent agreement between the variational and even the first-order perturbative energy levels, whilst the perturbative approach is able to reduce the computational cost of the matrix-vector product evaluations, needed by the iterative Lanczos eigensolver, by almost an order of magnitude.

A complex coordinate scaling (CCS) method is described allowing the quantum chemical computation of quasibound (also called resonance or metastable) rovibrational states of strongly bound triatomic molecules. The molecule chosen to test the method is H2 16O, for which an accurate global potential energy surface, a previous computation of a few resonance states via the complex absorbing potential (CAP) method, and some Feshbach (J = 0, where J is the quantum number characterising overall rotations of the molecule) and shape (J ≠ 0) resonances measured via a state-selective, triple-resonance technique are all available. Characterisation of the computed resonance states is performed via probability density plots based on CCS rovibrational wavefunctions. Such plots provide useful details about the physical nature of the resonance states. Based on the computations and the resonance plots, the following useful facts about the resonance states investigated are obtained: (a) Feshbach resonances are formed by accu...

Born−Oppenheimer equilibrium structure (r BO e) estimates are reported for benzene and all 12 possible fluorobenzenes, based on geometry optimizations performed at the coupled cluster level of electronic structure theory including single and double excitations augmented by a perturbational estimate of the effects of connected triple excitations [CCSD(T)] and Gaussian basis sets of at least triple zeta quality. Furthermore, accurate semiexperimental equilibrium (r SE e) structures are determined for C6H6, C6H5F, and 1,2- and 1,3-difluorobenzene. They are obtained through a least-squares structural refinement procedure based on equilibrium rotational constants of as many isotopologues as feasible, determined by correcting experimental vibrationally averaged ground-state rotational constants with computed ab initio vibration–rotation interaction constants and electronic g-factors, and using a few structural constraints based on the best r BO e estimates. The r BO e and r SE e equilibrium structures are in ex...

We estimated the post-Born–Oppenheimer (post-BO) contribution to electric dipole moments by finite-field derivatives of the diagonal Born–Oppenheimer correction computed with correlated electronic wave functions. The new method is used to examine the effect of isotopic substitution on the dipole moments of the HD, LiH, LiD, and H2 16O molecules. The non-zero dipole moment of HD is solely due to the post-BO effect and is predicted within a few percent of the best experimental and theoretical results. The post-BO contribution to the dipole moment in LiH and LiD is comparable in magnitude to that in HD, but the difference in total adiabatic dipole moments of LiH and LiD is dominated by the vibrationally averaged BO contribution, and the post-BO contribution is relatively unimportant. However, the post-BO contribution to the dipole moment in H2O is much larger than the vibrationally averaged BO contribution determined by Lodi et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 128, 044304 (2008)] and is twice as large as the discrepancy ...

Following an extensive search on the potential energy surfaces (PES) of the natural amino acid L-threonine (Thr) and its allotropic form L-allo-threonine (aThr), 56 and 61 conformers of Thr and aThr, respectively, have been located with the help of density functional theory (DFT). Accurate structures, relative energies, rotational as well as quartic and sextic centrifugal distortion constants, dipole moments, 14N nuclear quadrupole coupling constants, anharmonic vibrational frequencies and double-harmonic infrared intensities have been determined from ab initio electronic structure calculations for the five most stable Thr and aThr conformers. The global minimum, Thr-I, has a cyclic triple H-bond motif with strong OH ··· N, C=O ··· HO, and a weaker NH ··· OH H-bond, where the latter two involves the side chain OH, and an energetically unfavourable trans-COOH arrangement. The best relative energies of the conformers, accurate within ±1 kJ mol−1, have been determined through the first-principles composite f...

A simple variational procedure, termed DOPI for discrete variable representation—Hamiltonian in orthogonal coordinates—direct product basis–iterative diagonalization, is described and applied to compute low-lying vibrational band origins (VBOs) of the triatomic systems H2O, CO2, and N2O, employing published empirical and theoretical sextic force fields. While in these cases no difficulties arise when quartic potentials are used, the limited range of applicability of 6th-order potentials presents difficulties for the variational determination of VBOs, in particular for the higher-lying bending states. For H2O, transformation of quadratic and quartic force fields from simple bond stretching to Simons–Parr–Finlan (SPF) coordinates results in computed VBOs deviating less from experiment. This, however, does not hold for the VBOs computed from the transformed sextic force fields where the two representations provide highly similar results. While use of empirical quartic and sextic force fields result in a much...

The standard enthalpy of formation, Δ f H°, of 2 Π CH has been determined at converged levels of ab initio electronic structure theory, including high order coupled cluster and full configuration interaction benchmarks. The atomic Gaussian basis sets employed include the (aug)-cc-p(C)VXZ family with X = 3, 4, 5 and 6. Extrapolations to the complete one-particle basis set and the full configuration interaction limits, where appropriate, have been performed to reduce remaining computational errors. Additional improvements in the enthalpy of formation of 2 Π CH were achieved by appending the valence-only treatment with core-valence correlation, relativistic effects including spin-orbit correlation, and the diagonal Born-Oppenheimer correction. The recommended values for Δ f H° 0 and Δ f H° 2 9 8 of 2 Π CH are 592.48 + 0 . 4 7 - 0 . 5 6 kJ mol - 1 and 595.93 + 0 . 4 7 - 0 . 5 6 kJ mol - 1 , respectively.

The brace notation, introduced by Allen and Csaszar (1993, J. chem. Phys., 98 2983), provides a simple and compact way to deal with derivatives of arbitrary non-tensorial quantities. One of its main advantages is that it builds the permutational symmetry of the derivatives directly into the formalism. The brace notation is applied to formulate the general nth-order Cartesian derivatives of internal coordinates, and to provide closed forms for general, nth-order transformation equations of anharmonic force fields, expressed as Taylor series, from internal to Cartesian or normal coordinate spaces.

Forms for the exact non-relativistic quantum mechanical vibrational (J = 0) kinetic energy operators for sequentially bonded (A-B-C-D-E) and (A,B)-C-D-E-type penta-atomic molecules, expressed in valence internal coordinates, are presented. As advocated earlier (Handy, N. C., 1987, Molec. Phys., 61, 207), computer algebra has been employed during the derivation. The suggested use of these operators in calculations for vibrational energy levels of interesting penta-atomic molecules (e.g., C3O2, and H2CCO) is outlined.

Special issue: 23rd Colloquium on High Resolution Molecular Spectroscopy Timothy P. Softley, Attila G. Csaszar, Paolo De Natale, Michel Herman & Martin Quack a Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK b Laboratory of Molecular Structure and Dynamics, Institute of Chemistry, Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary c INO CNR, I-50125 Florence, FI Italy and European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy LENS, Florence, Italy d Service de Chimie Quantique et Photophysique, Faculte des Sciences, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium e Laboratorium fur Physikalische Chemie, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Published online: 11 Aug 2014.