Intermolecular potential for the interaction of helium with ammonia

Vibrational energy transfer in ammonia-helium collisions

While the rotational energy transfer of ammonia by rare gas atoms and hydrogen molecules has been the focus of many studies, little is known about its vibrational relaxation, even though transitions involving the umbrella bending mode have been observed in many astrophysical environments. Here we explore the vibrational relaxation of the umbrella mode of ammonia induced by collisions with helium atoms by means of the close-coupling method on an ab initio potential energy surface. We compute cross sections up to kinetic energies of 1500 cm-1 and rate coefficients up to a temperature of 300 K for vibrational, rotational, and inversion transitions involving the lowest two vibrational states. We show that vibrational relaxation is much less efficient than rotation-inversion relaxation, although the rate coefficients for vibrational relaxation strongly increase with the temperature. We also observe important differences for vibrationally-elastic transitions within the lowest two vibrational states, i.e., for rotation-inversion transitions. These are a direct consequence of the difference in the tunnelling splitting of the lowest inversion levels.

Explicitly correlated potential energy surface of the CH3Cl-He van der Waals complex and applications

A new 3D-potential energy surface (3D-PES) for the weakly bound CH₃Cl-He complex is mapped in Jacobi coordinates. Electronic structure calculations are performed using the explicitly correlated coupled clusters with single, double, and perturbative triple excitations approach in conjunction with the aug-cc-pVTZ basis set. Then, an analytical expansion of this 3D-PES is derived. This PES shows three minimal structures for collinear C-Cl-He arrangements and for He located in between two H atoms, in the plane parallel to the three H atoms, which is near the center of mass of CH₃Cl. The latter form corresponds to the global minimum. Two maxima are also found, which connect the minimal structures. We then evaluated the pressure broadening coefficients of the spectral lines of CH₃Cl in a helium bath based on our ab initio potential. Satisfactory agreement with experiments was observed, confirming the good accuracy of our 3D-PES. We also derived the bound rovibronic levels for ortho- and para-CH₃Cl-He dimers after quantum treatment of the nuclear motions. For both clusters, computations show that although the ground vibrational state is located well above the intramolecular isomerization barriers, the rovibronic levels may be associated with a specific minimal structure. This can be explained by vibrational localization and vibrational memory effects.

Inelastic scattering dynamics of ortho and para hydronium ions, o-H3O+ and p-H3O+, with He at low temperature

The hydronium ion, H3O+, presents a crucial key to understanding the chemistry of the interstellar clouds where it has been frequently observed. The present paper is devoted to studying the inelastic scattering of both forms of the hydronium ion, o-H3O+ and p-H3O+, by helium atoms. The interaction potential between H3O+ and He was mapped in Jacobi coordinates leading to a new three dimensional potential energy surface (3D-PES) at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVQZ+BF (CCSD(T)/AVQZ+BF) level of theory. Close coupling treatment was used to obtain rotational cross-sections for both o-H3O+ and p-H3O+ involving 9 rotational states in each case. The cross-sections were computed from energy thresholds up to 500 cm-1 for o-H3O+ and up to 300 cm-1 for p-H3O+, in order to generate rotational rate coefficients for the kinetic temperature range 5-50 K for both forms. The use of the present rates are viewed to be a good tool to estimate hydronium abundance.

Quasiparticle Approach to Molecules Interacting with Quantum Solvents

Understanding the behavior of molecules interacting with superfluid helium represents a formidable challenge and, in general, requires approaches relying on large-scale numerical simulations. Here, we demonstrate that experimental data collected over the last 20 years provide evidence that molecules immersed in superfluid helium form recently predicted angulon quasiparticles [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 203001 (2015)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.114.203001]. Most important, casting the many-body problem in terms of angulons amounts to a drastic simplification and yields effective molecular moments of inertia as straightforward analytic solutions of a simple microscopic Hamiltonian. The outcome of the angulon theory is in good agreement with experiment for a broad range of molecular impurities, from heavy to medium-mass to light species. These results pave the way to understanding molecular rotation in liquid and crystalline phases in terms of the angulon quasiparticle.

Blueshift and intramolecular tunneling of NH3 umbrella mode in 4He n clusters

We present diffusion Monte Carlo calculations of the ground and first excited vibrational states of NH(3) (4)He(n) for n< or =40. We use the potential energy surface developed by one of us [M. P. Hodges and R. J. Wheatley, J. Chem. Phys. 114, 8836 (2001)], which includes the umbrella mode coordinate of NH(3). Using quantum Monte Carlo calculations of excited states, we show that this potential is able to reproduce qualitatively the experimentally observed effects of the helium environment, namely, a blueshift of the umbrella mode frequency and a reduction of the tunneling splittings in ground and first excited vibrational states of the molecule. These basic features are found to result regardless of whether dynamical approximations or exact calculations are employed.

Dipole oscillator strength distributions, properties, and dispersion energies for ethylene, propene, and 1-butene

A recommended isotropic dipole oscillator strength distribution (DOSD) has been constructed for the ethylene molecule through the use of quantum mechanical constraint techniques and experimental dipole oscillator strength (DOS) data; the DOS data employed are recent experimental results not available at the time of the original constrained DOSD analysis of this molecule. The constraints are furnished by molar refractivity data and the Thomas–Reiche–Kuhn sum rule. The DOSD is used to evaluate a variety of isotropic dipole oscillator strength sums, logarithmic dipole oscillator strength sums, and mean excitation energies for ethylene. Pseudo-DOSDs for this molecule, and for propene and 1–butene, which are based on an earlier constrained DOSD analysis for these molecules, are developed. They are used to obtain reliable results for the isotropic dipole–dipole dispersion-energy coefficients C6, for the interactions of the alkenes with each other and with 47 other species, and the triple-dipole dispersion-energy coefficients C9 for interactions involving any triple of molecules taken from ethylene, propene, and 1–butene.Key words: alkenes, dipole properties, pseudo-states, dipole–dipole and triple-dipole dispersion energies, long-range additive, non-additive interaction energies.

Dipole Oscillator Strength Distributions and Properties for Methanol, Ethanol and Propan-1-ol and Related Dispersion Energies

Recommended isotropic dipole oscillator strength distributions (DOSDs) have been constructed for the methanol and ethanol molecules through the use of quantum mechanical constraint techniques and experimental dipole oscillator strength (DOS) data; the DOS data employed are recent experimental results not available at the time of the original constrained DOSD analysis of these molecules. The constraints are furnished by molar refractivity data and the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule. The DOSDs are used to evaluate a variety of isotropic dipole oscillator strength sums, logarithmic dipole oscillator strength sums, and mean excitation energies for the molecules. Pseudo-DOSDs for these molecules, and for propan-1-ol based on an earlier constrained DOSD analysis for this molecule, are also presented. They are used to obtain reliable results for the isotropic dipole-dipole dispersion energy coefficients C6, for the interactions of the alcohols with each other and with 36 other species, and the triple-dipole dispersion energy coefficients C9for interactions involving any triple of molecules involving methanol, ethanol and propan-1-ol.

An environmental pseudopotential approach to molecular interactions: Implementation in MOLPRO

We present the implementation into the MOLPRO package of a model for the interaction of a central system with its surrounding environment. The properties of a target system enclosed by a noncovalently bound environment or solvent are modeled as those of a system embedded into the effective pseudopotential arising from the exact electrostatic Coulomb potential and the approximated exchange-repulsion potential. For the latter we use the charge-density overlap model, which relates the exchange-repulsion interaction energy between two species with the overlap of their ground-state electron charge densities. The solutions of the modified Hartree-Fock equations for the target system are obtained self-consistently. This way the exchange-induction effects arising from the converged electron-charge density of the embedded system are implicitly included. Inclusion of the correlation effects is provided by the use of post-Hartree-Fock and density-functional techniques available in the MOLPRO package. The computational and conceptual advantages provided by this approach are shown in the calculation of the dipole polarizabilities of halide and chalcogenide anions in different environments.