The bromine nuclear quadrupole moment revisited

Weak hydrogen bonding to halogens and chirality communication in propanols: Raman and microwave spectroscopy benchmark theory

Constitutional and conformational isomers of bromopropanol are vibrationally and rotationally characterised with parallels drawn to the structural chlorine analogues. A previous microwave spectroscopic study of the chloropropanols is re-examined and all systems are explored by Raman jet spectroscopy. For bromine, the entire nuclear quadrupole coupling tensors are accurately determined and compared to their chlorine counterparts. Tensor asymmetry parameters are determined and linked with the hydrogen bond strength as indicated by the downshift of the OH-stretching frequency. The spectroscopic constants derived from the observed transitions are used as benchmarks for a large variety of electronic structure methods followed by harmonic and anharmonic rovibrational treatments. The CCSD(T) electronic structure calculations provide the best performance, in particular once anharmonic and relativistic corrections are applied or implied. Standard DFT approaches vary substantially with respect to their systematic error cancellation across the investigated species, and cost-effective compromises for the different observables are proposed.

Reappraisal of nuclear quadrupole moments of atomic halogens via relativistic coupled cluster linear response theory for the ionization process

The coupled cluster based linear response theory (CCLRT) with four-component relativistic spinors is employed to compute the electric field gradients (EFG) of (35)Cl, (79)Br, and (127)I nuclei. The EFGs resulting from these calculations are combined with experimental nuclear quadrupole coupling constants (NQCC) to determine the nuclear quadrupole moments (NQM), Q of the halide nuclei. Our estimated NQMs [(35)Cl = -81.12 mb, (79)Br = 307.98 mb, and (127)I = -688.22 mb] agree well with the new atomic values [(35)Cl = -81.1(1.2), (79)Br = 302(5), and (127)I = -680(10) mb] obtained via Fock space multireference coupled cluster method with the Dirac-Coulomb-Breit Hamiltonian. Although our estimated Q((79)Br) value deviates from the accepted reference value of 313(3) mb, it agrees well with the recently recommended value, Q((79)Br) = 308.7(20) mb. Good agreement with current reference data indicates the accuracy of the proposed value for these halogen nuclei and lends credence to the results obtained via CCLRT approach. The electron affinities yielded by this method with no extra cost are also in good agreement with experimental values, which bolster our belief that the NQMs values for halogen nuclei derived here are reliable.