Observation of the Low-Frequency Spectrum of the Water Trimer as a Sensitive Test of the Water-Trimer Potential and the Dipole-Moment Surface

Tunneling splittings in the vibrationally excited states of water trimer

Tunneling splitting (TS) patterns in vibrationally excited states of the water trimer are calculated, taking into account six tunneling pathways that describe the flips of free OH bonds and five bifurcation mechanisms that break and reform hydrogen bonds in the trimer ring. A tunneling matrix (TM) model is used to derive the energy shifts due to tunneling in terms of the six distinct TM elements in symbolic form. TM elements are calculated using the recently-developed modified WKB (Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin) method in full dimensionality. Convergence was achieved for the lowest six excited vibrational modes. Bifurcation widths of the pseudorotational quartets are shown to be of comparable size to the ground-state widths, obtained using instanton theory, or increased for some particular modes of vibration. The largest increase is obtained for the excited out-of-phase flip of two adjacent water monomers with free OH bonds pointing in opposite directions relative to the ring plane. Bifurcation widths in (D2O)3 are found to be two orders of magnitude smaller than in (H2O)3. Geometrical arguments were used to explain the order of states in some TS multiplets in vibrationally excited water trimers.

Insight into the Binding of Argon to Cyclic Water Clusters from Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory

This work systematically examines the interactions between a single argon atom and the edges and faces of cyclic H2O clusters containing three-five water molecules (Ar(H2O)n=3-5). Full geometry optimizations and subsequent harmonic vibrational frequency computations were performed using MP2 with a triple-ζ correlation consistent basis set augmented with diffuse functions on the heavy atoms (cc-pVTZ for H and aug-cc-pVTZ for O and Ar; denoted as haTZ). Optimized structures and harmonic vibrational frequencies were also obtained with the two-body-many-body (2b:Mb) and three-body-many-body (3b:Mb) techniques; here, high-level CCSD(T) computations capture up through the two-body or three-body contributions from the many-body expansion, respectively, while less demanding MP2 computations recover all higher-order contributions. Five unique stationary points have been identified in which Ar binds to the cyclic water trimer, along with four for (H2O)4 and three for (H2O)5. To the best of our knowledge, eleven of these twelve structures have been characterized here for the first time. Ar consistently binds more strongly to the faces than the edges of the cyclic (H2O)n clusters, by as much as a factor of two. The 3b:Mb electronic energies computed with the haTZ basis set indicate that Ar binds to the faces of the water clusters by at least 3 kJ mol-1 and by nearly 6 kJ mol-1 for one Ar(H2O)5 complex. An analysis of the interaction energies for the different binding motifs based on symmetry-adapted perturbation theory (SAPT) indicates that dispersion interactions are primarily responsible for the observed trends. The binding of a single Ar atom to a face of these cyclic water clusters can induce perturbations to the harmonic vibrational frequencies on the order of 5 cm-1 for some hydrogen-bonded OH stretching frequencies.

Sequential flipping: the donor-acceptor exchange mechanism in water trimers

The donor-acceptor exchange (DAE) is a significant hydrogen bond network rearrangement (HBNR) mechanism because it can lead to the change of the hydrogen bond direction. In this work, we report a new DAE mechanism found in water trimers that is realized by sequential flipping (SF) of all molecules rather than the well-known proton transfer (PT) process. Meanwhile, the SF process has a much smaller potential barrier (0.262 eV) than the previously predicted collective rotation process (about 1.7 eV), implying that the SF process is the main flipping process that can lead to DAE. Importantly, high-precision ab initio calculations show that SF-DAE can make the water ring to show a clear chiral difference from PT-DAE, which brings the prospect of distinguishing the two confusing processes based on circular dichroism spectra. The reaction rate analysis including quantum tunneling indicates an obvious temperature-dependent competitive relationship between the SF and PT processes; specifically, the SF process dominates above 65 K, while the PT process dominates below 65 K. Therefore, in most cases, the contribution for DAE mainly comes from the flipping process, rather than the PT process as previously thought. Our work enriches the understanding of the DAE mechanism in water trimers and provides a piece of the jigsaw that has been sought for the HBNR mechanism.

Accurate calculation of tunneling splittings in water clusters using path-integral based methods

Tunneling splittings observed in molecular rovibrational spectra are significant evidence for tunneling motion of hydrogen nuclei in water clusters. Accurate calculations of the splitting sizes from first principles require a combination of high-quality inter-atomic interactions and rigorous methods to treat the nuclei with quantum mechanics. Many theoretical efforts have been made in recent decades. This Perspective focuses on two path-integral based tunneling splitting methods whose computational cost scales well with the system size, namely, the ring-polymer instanton method and the path-integral molecular dynamics (PIMD) method. From a simple derivation, we show that the former is a semiclassical approximation to the latter, despite that the two methods are derived very differently. Currently, the PIMD method is considered to be an ideal route to rigorously compute the ground-state tunneling splitting, while the instanton method sacrifices some accuracy for a significantly smaller computational cost. An application scenario of such a quantitatively rigorous calculation is to test and calibrate the potential energy surfaces of molecular systems by spectroscopic accuracy. Recent progress in water clusters is reviewed, and the current challenges are discussed.

Breaking covalent bonds in the context of the many-body expansion (MBE). I. The purported "first row anomaly" in XHn (X = C, Si, Ge, Sn; n = 1-4)

We present a new, novel implementation of the Many-Body Expansion (MBE) to account for the breaking of covalent bonds, thus extending the range of applications from its previous popular usage in the breaking of hydrogen bonds in clusters to molecules. A central concept of the new implementation is the in situ atomic electronic state of an atom in a molecule that casts the one-body term as the energy required to promote it to that state from its ground state. The rest of the terms correspond to the individual diatomic, triatomic, etc., fragments. Its application to the atomization energies of the XHn series, X = C, Si, Ge, Sn and n = 1-4, suggests that the (negative, stabilizing) 2-B is by far the largest term in the MBE with the higher order terms oscillating between positive and negative values and decreasing dramatically in size with increasing rank of the expansion. The analysis offers an alternative explanation for the purported "first row anomaly" in the incremental Hn-1X-H bond energies seen when these energies are evaluated with respect to the lowest energy among the states of the XHn molecules. Due to the "flipping" of the ground/first excited state between CH2 (3B1 ground state, 1A1 first excited state) and XH2, X = Si, Ge, Sn (1A1 ground state, 3B1 first excited state), the overall picture does not exhibit a "first row anomaly" when the incremental bond energies are evaluated with respect to the molecular states having the same in situ atomic states.

An infrared spectroscopic study of trifluoromethoxybenzene⋯methanol complexes formed in superfluid helium nanodroplets

We have studied the intermolecular complex formation between trifluoromethoxybenzene and methanol (CD₃OD) in superfluid helium droplets by infrared spectroscopy in the spectral range of 2630-2730 cm^-1, covering the O-D stretches of methanol-d₄ (CD₃OD). The cluster size associated with the observed bands is deduced from the variation of infrared intensity of a particular band with the partial pressures of trifluoromethoxybenzene and methanol. Quantum chemical calculations are performed at the MP2/6-311++G(d,p) level of theory to complement the experimental results. As a result, we have identified six different conformers of the trifluoromethoxybenzene⋯methanol intermolecular complex: three bound via O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds and the other three via O-H⋯π hydrogen bonds. Furthermore, to access the effect of fluorination on the methyl unit of anisole molecules, we compare the IR spectrum of trifluoromethoxybenzene (C₆H₅OCF₃)⋯methanol with our earlier reported spectrum of anisole (C₆H₅OCH₃)⋯methanol.

Calculating Reliable Gibbs Free Energies for Formation of Gas-Phase Clusters that Are Critical for Atmospheric Chemistry: (H2SO4)3

The effects of atmospheric aerosols on our climate are one of the biggest uncertainties in global climate models. Calculating the pathway for the formation of pre-nucleation clusters that become aerosols is challenging, requiring a comprehensive analysis of configurational space and highly accurate Gibbs free energy calculations. We identified a large set of minimum energy configurations of (H₂SO₄)₃ using a sampling technique based on a genetic algorithm and a stepwise density functional theory (DFT) approach and computed the thermodynamics of formation of these configurations with more accurate wavefunction-based electronic energies computed on the DFT geometries. The DLPNO-CCSD(T) methods always return more positive energies compared to the DFT energies. Within the DLPNO-CCSD(T) methods, extrapolating to the complete basis set limit gives more positive free energies compared to explicitly correlated single-point energies. The CBS extrapolation was shown to be robust as both the 4-5 inverse polynomial and Riemann zeta function schemes were within chemical accuracy of one another.

Many-Body Dispersion

A broad range of approaches to many-body dispersion are discussed, including empirical approaches with multiple fitted parameters, augmented density functional-based approaches, symmetry adapted perturbation theory, and a supermolecule approach based on coupled cluster theory. Differing definitions of "body" are considered, specifically atom-based vs molecule-based approaches.

Observation of the Low-Frequency Spectrum of the Water Trimer as a Sensitive Test of the Water-Trimer Potential and the Dipole-Moment Surface

Intermolecular interactions in bulk water are dominated by pairwise and non‐pairwise cooperative interactions. While accurate descriptions of the pairwise interactions are available and can be tested by precise low‐frequency spectra of the water dimer up to 550 cm⁻¹, the same does not hold for the three‐body interactions. Here, we report the first comprehensive spectrum of the water trimer in the frequency region from 70 to 620 cm⁻¹ using helium‐nanodroplet isolation and free‐electron lasers. By comparison to accompanying high‐level quantum calculations, the experimentally observed intermolecular bands can be assigned. The transition frequencies of the degenerate translation, the degenerate in‐plane and the non‐degenerate out‐of‐plane libration, as well as additional bands of the out‐of‐plane librational mode are reported for the first time. These provide a benchmark for state‐of‐the‐art water potentials and dipole‐moment surfaces, especially with respect to three‐body interactions.