Microwave spectrum of the HD2O+ ion: inversion-rotation transitions and inversion splitting

Inversion-rotation spectral lines of the dideuterated hydronium ion, HD2O+, have been observed by a source-modulation millimeter- to submillimeter-wave spectrometer. The ion was generated by a hollow-cathode discharge in a gas mixture of D2O and H2O in a free-space cell. Ten inversion-rotation lines were measured precisely for the lowest pair of inversion doublets in the frequency region from 380 to 730 GHz. The observed lines include the most astronomically important transitions, 0(00) (-)-1(10)+ for the para species at 380 538.031(32) MHz and 1(01) (-)-1(11)+ for the ortho species at 728 420.189(34) MHz, which could be used as a radio astronomical probe investigating interstellar chemistry of deuterium fractionation. An analysis of the measured lines has yielded the rotational constants in the ground doublet states and the inversion splitting. The inversion splitting in the ground state was determined to be 808 866(34) MHz, that is, 26.980 87(113) cm(-1), where the numbers in parentheses give uncertainties estimated from the Jacobian matrix of the assumed centrifugal distortion constants. The determined inversion splitting is off by -0.51 cm(-1) from the predicted value of 27.49 cm(-1) by Rajamaki et al. using high-order coupled cluster ab initio calculation [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 10929 (2003)], and by -0.0510 cm(-1) from the observed value of 27.0318(72) cm(-1) by Dong et al. using high-resolution jet-cooled infrared spectroscopy [J. Chem. Phys. 122, 224301 (2005)] beyond the quoted uncertainty.