Spectroscopic properties and potential surfaces for atom-diatom van der Waals molecules

Calculation of the Transport and Relaxation Properties of the Ar···HCl van der Waals Complex Using a New Potential Energy Surface: Comparison of the Classical and Full Quantum Mechanical Kinetic Theory Results with Molecular Dynamics Simulations

The intermolecular potential energy surface (PES) of the Ar···HCl complex was calculated at the RCCSD(T)/aug-cc-pvQz-BF level of theory. The obtained potential was expanded in terms of Legendre polynomials and fitted to a mathematical model. The fitting results are highly correlated with the ab initio PES data with SD = 5.9 × 10^-3 cm^-1 and average absolute deviation (AAD) = 4.0 × 10^-6 cm^-1. The interaction second virial coefficients (B₁₂) in the temperature range of 190-480 K were calculated by considering classical and first quantum corrections and compared with the available experimental data. A reasonable agreement with the experimental and calculated B₁₂ was obtained. The PES was also used to obtain the rovibrational energy levels, and the spectroscopic rovibrational constants were obtained. It was found that the D₀ values differ ∼2.25 cm^-1 from the experimental values of the ground rovibrational state. Furthermore, the obtained potential was used to calculate the transport and relaxation properties using full quantum close-coupling (CC) formalism and the classical kinetic theory methods based on the Mason-Monchik approximation (MMA). It was found that the deviation between MMA and CC calculations is increased with increasing the temperature due to the higher influence of the rotational degrees of freedom on the transport properties. Also, the contribution of the inelastic (off-diagonal) transitions for diffusion coefficient is higher than the viscosity. Furthermore, the classical molecular dynamics simulations were performed using LJ(12,6) and Vashishta models, to calculate the interaction diffusion and viscosity coefficients, and compared with the results of the full quantum CC calculations. The obtained results confirm that the Vashishta model is better fitted to the ab initio potentials and is more accurate than LJ(12,6) in calculation of the diffusion coefficients.

Quantum solvation dynamics of HCN in a helium-4 droplet

Ultracold nanodroplets of helium-4, containing several thousands of He atoms, offer considerable promise as microscopic cryogenic chambers. Potential applications include the creation of tailor-made chemical or biomolecular complexes and studies of superfluidity in nanoscale systems. Recent experiments have succeeded in interrogating droplets of quantum solvent which consist of as few as 1-20 helium-4 atoms and which contain a single solute molecule. This allows the transition from a floppy, but essentially molecular, complex to a dissolved molecule to be followed and, surprisingly, the transition is found to occur quite rapidly, in some cases for as few as N = 7-20 solvent atoms. For example, in experiments on helium-4 droplets seeded with CO molecules [Tang and McKellar, J. Chem. Phys. 119, 754 (2003)], two series of transitions are observed which correlate with the a-type (Delta K = 0) and b-type (Delta K = +/-1) lines of the binary complex, CO-He (K is the quantum number associated with the projection of the total angular momentum onto the vector connecting the atom and the molecular center of mass). The a-type series, which evolves from the end-over-end rotational motion of the CO-He binary complex, saturates to the nanodroplet limit for as few as 10-15 helium-4 atoms, i.e., the effective moment of inertia of the molecule converges to its asymptotic (solvated) value quite rapidly. In contrast, the b-type series, which evolves from the free-molecule rotational mode, disappears altogether for N approximately 7 atoms. Similar behavior is observed in recent computational studies of HCN(4He)N droplets [Paolini et al., J. Chem. Phys. 123, 114306 (2005)]. In this article the quantum solvation of HCN in small helium-4 droplets is studied using a new fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) procedure. In this approach a Born-Oppenheimer-type separation of radial and angular motions is introduced as a means of computing nodal surfaces of the many-body wave functions which are required in the fixed-node DMC method. Excited rotational energies are calculated for HCN(4He)N droplets with N = 1-20: the adiabatic node approach also allows concrete physical mechanisms to be proposed for the predicted disappearance of the b-type series as well as the rapid convergence of the a-type series to the nanodroplet limit with increasing N. The behavior of the a-type series is traced directly to the mechanics of angular momentum coupling-and decoupling-between identical bosons and the molecular rotor. For very small values of N there exists significant angular momentum coupling between the molecule and the helium atoms: at N approximately 10 solvation appears to be complete as evidenced by significant decoupling of the molecule and solvent angular momenta. The vanishing of the b-type series is predicted to be a result of increasing He-He repulsion as the number of solvent atoms increases.

Potential energy surface and rovibrational states of the ground Ar–HI complex

A potential energy surface for the ground electronic state of the Ar-HI van der Waals complex is calculated at the coupled-cluster with single and double excitations and a noniterative perturbation treatment of triple excitations [CCSD(T)] level of theory. Calculations are performed using for the iodine atom a correlation consistent triple-zeta valence basis set in conjunction with large-core Stuttgart-Dresden-Bonn relativistic pseudopotential, whereas specific augmented correlation consistent basis sets are employed for the H and Ar atoms supplemented with an additional set of bond functions. In agreement with previous studies, the equilibrium structure is found to be linear Ar-I-H, with a well depth of 205.38 cm(-1). Another two secondary minima are also predicted at a linear and bent Ar-H-I configurations with well depths of 153.57 and 151.57 cm(-1), respectively. The parametrized CCSD(T) potential is used to calculate rovibrational bound states of Ar-HI/Ar-DI complexes, and the vibrationally averaged structures of the different isomers are determined. Spectroscopic constants are also computed from the CCSD(T) surface and their comparison with available experimental data demonstrates the quality of the present surface in the corresponding configuration regions.

Rovibrational Energies of Triatomic Molecules by Means of the Rayleigh-Schrödinger Perturbation Theory

A Rayleigh-Schrödinger perturbation theory approach based on the adiabatic (Born-Oppenheimer) separation of vibrational motions was previously developed and used to evaluate for a system of coupled oscillators the adiabatic energy levels and their nonadiabatic corrections. This method is applied here to calculate rotation-vibration energies of the triatomic molecular ions HeH(+)(2) and ArNO(+) consisting of a strongly bound diatomic fragment and a relatively loosely bound rare gas atom. In these systems the high-frequency stretching motion of the diatomic fragment can be separated from the other two low-frequency motions without substantial loss of accuracy. Treating the diatomic fragment as a rigid rotor, the low-frequency stretching motion is decoupled from the bending motion in analogy to the concept of the adiabatic (Born-Oppenheimer) separation of motions and the strong nonadiabatic couplings between these two motions are accounted for perturbationally. Although the resulting perturbation series may show poor convergence, they turn out to be accurately summable by applying standard techniques for the summation of divergent series. Comparison with the results obtained from full-dimensional calculations for the two ions shows that the approach is capable of providing accurate energies for quite a few of the bound rotation-vibration states and that in the case of the HeH(+)(2) ion it is even able to predict the positions and widths of some low-lying resonance states with good accuracy. The perturbation approach yields zeroth-order energies and corrections in terms of the relevant quantum numbers. It thus allows a direct assignment of the energy levels without any reference to the corresponding eigenfunctions. The weak couplings between the high- and low-frequency motions can easily be treated by the same perturbative approach and numerically exact energies can finally be obtained. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.