Stability,structural properties,and dissociation pathways of silylidyne‐amines RSiN and silylidyne‐phosphanes RSiP (R = F,Cl)

Stability, structural properties, and dissociation pathways of silylidyne‐amines FSiN, ClSiN, their isomers, and silylidyne‐phosphanes FSiP and ClSiP have been studied in detail using ab initio MP2, CCSD, and CCSD(T) and density functional B3LYP methods. After dissociation of FSiN, ClSiN, FSiP, and ClSiP, the fragmented atoms have been considered to be either in their ground state or in their metastable state in various dissociation channels. The dissociation energy for various dissociation pathways has been compared and interesting results have been obtained for the dissociation channels where the fragmented atoms are in their metastable states. The structure properties of these molecules agree well with the theoretical results wherever available. The NBO atomic charges of these molecules have been analyzed. The isomerization energy has been compared with existing theoretical data. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2008     

Dissociative double photoionization of N2 using synchrotron radiation: appearance energy of the N2+ dication

Photoionization cross sections for the production of the doubly charged ion N2+ from N2 have been measured by means of synchrotron radiation in the photon energy range from 50 to 110 eV. The appearance energy for N2+ has been determined as 55.2+/-0.2 eV, i.e., about 1.3 eV higher than the spectroscopic dissociation limit leading to the charge asymmetric dissociation channel N2+(2P)+N(4S) at 53.9 eV. The onset of a second threshold at 59.9+/-0.2 eV is detected and the energy dependence of photoion intensities near the threshold regions is interpreted in terms of the Wannier theory. The production of the N2+ dication is discussed in terms of direct and indirect mechanisms for dissociative charge asymmetric photoionization and by comparison with the potential energy curves of the intermediate N(2)2+ dication. Experimental evidences for the opening of the Coulomb explosion channel N2++N+ at high photon energies are provided by measuring the kinetic energy release spectra of N2+ fragments at selected photon energies.     

High energy photophysics and photochemistry: Assignment of initial electronic states of fragmentation processes in CO2+2

The assignment of the electronic states of gas-phase molecular dications presents a number of difficulties. After discussing these problems a strategy for assignment, which collates the results of several experimental and theoretical techniques, is presented. The use of information from the fragmentation dynamics of dication states is proposed. Three states, g̃a, g̃b and g̃g, of CO²⁺₂, whose appearance potentials were previously observed by photoion-photoion coincidence techniques at 37.9, 40.5 and 45 eV, respectively, are assigned using the methods presented. The results also strongly support the value 37.7 eV for the appearance potential of the metastable ground state X̃³∑^-_g of CO²⁺₂. Present limitations and future desirable progress of the assignment techniques are discussed.     

Relativistic calculations of ground and excited states of LiYb molecule for ultracold photoassociation spectroscopy studies

We report a series of quantum-chemical calculations for the ground and some of the low-lying excited states of an isolated LiYb molecule by the spin-orbit multistate complete active space second-order perturbation theory (SO-MS-CASPT2). Potential energy curves, spectroscopic constants, and transition dipole moments (TDMs) at both spin-free and spin-orbit levels are obtained. Large spin-orbit effects especially in the TDMs of the molecular states dissociating to Yb((3)P(0,1,2)) excited states are found. To ensure the reliability of our calculations, we test five types of incremental basis sets and study their effect on the equilibrium distance and dissociation energy of the ground state. We also compare CASPT2 and CCSD(T) results for the ground state spectroscopic constants at the spin-free relativistic level. The discrepancies between the CASPT2 and CCSD(T) results are only 0.01 ? in equilibrium bond distance (R(e)) and 200 cm(-1) in dissociation energy (D(e)). Our CASPT2 calculation in the supermolecular state (R=100 a.u.) with the largest basis set reproduces experimental atomic excitation energies within 3% error. Transition dipole moments of the super molecular state (R=100 a.u.) dissociating to Li((2)P) excited states are quite close to experimental atomic TDMs as compared to the Yb((3)P) and Yb((1)P) excited states. The information obtained from this work would be useful for ultracold photoassociation experiments on LiYb.     

Probing interatomic potentials by ion translational energy spectrometry: A new crossed molecular beams apparatus

This report presents details of the development of a new crossed molecular beams apparatus designed and fabricated to carry out high sensitivity ion translational energy spectrometric investigations of the potential energy surfaces of small molecular species. The translational energy spectrometer is used to carry out experimental studies of ion-neutral reactions resulting in charge stripping of CS⁺ radicals and dissociation of metastable CO²⁺ dications. These results are interpreted in the light of high-levelab initia molecular orbital calculations of the pertinent molecular potential energy functions. New results for the double ionisation energy of CS and the kinetic energy released upon dissociation of specific electronic states of CO²⁺ are presented.     

Ab initio study of spectroscopic properties of CuAr, CuAr(+) and CuAr(-)

The spectroscopic properties of CuAr, CuAr(+) and CuAr(-) have been studied in detail using ab initio MP2, CCSD and CCSD(T) methods. The effect of basis set on spectroscopic properties of these molecular systems has also been investigated. Among these molecules, CuAr(+) is found to be more strongly bound than CuAr and CuAr(-). The spectroscopic properties of CuAr and CuAr(-) are calculated in Lennard-Jones potential and the spectroscopic properties of CuAr(+) are calculated in Morse potential. Most of the spectroscopic constants of CuAr, CuAr(+) and all the spectroscopic constants of CuAr(-) are first reported. Our calculated bond length, harmonic frequency and dissociation energy of CuAr and CuAr(+) agree very well with the existing theoretical results.     

Dissociative double photoionization of singly deuterated benzene molecules in the 26-33 eV energy range

This work provides new experimental and theoretical results about the formation and dissociation of benzene dication. The experiment has been carried out by using a vacuum ultraviolet radiation from a synchrotron source together with a time-of-flight spectrometer and a position sensitive ion detector. Isotopically labeled benzene molecules with a single deuterium atom have been used in order to study the symmetric dissociation of the benzene dication, not well evident in previous experiments. A threshold of 30.1 ± 0.1 eV has been observed for this dissociation reaction. Moreover, the lifetime of the dissociation of the benzene metastable dication producing CH(3)(+) and C(5)H(3)(+) has been obtained as a function of the photon energy, by the use of a Monte Carlo trajectory analysis of the coincidence distributions. The determined lifetime is independent of the photon energy and has an average value of 0.75 ± 0.22 μs. Theoretical calculations of the energy and structure of dissociation product ions have been also performed to provide crucial information about the dynamics of the charge separation reactions following the photoionization event.     

Ab initio valence bond calculations. VII. HF,HF+, and H2F+

Ab initio valence bond calculations for the ground and excited states of HF and HF⁺ are presented. Total energies, equilibrium geometries, dissociation energies, dipole moments, and spectroscopic constants for HF and HF⁺ have been calculated. The photoelectron spectrum of HF has been examined and interpreted by means of the valence bond formalism. The ground state of the protonated species H₂F⁺ has been investigated.     

The singlet electronic ground state isomers of dialuminum monoxide: AlOAl, AlAlO, and the transition state connecting them

The singlet electronic ground state isomers, X (1)Sigma(g) (+) (AlOAl D(infinityh)) and X (1)Sigma(+) (AlAlO C(infinitynu)), of dialuminum monoxide have been systematically investigated using ab initio electronic structure theory. The equilibrium structures and physical properties for the two molecules have been predicted employing self-consistent field (SCF) configuration interaction with single and double excitations (CISD), multireference CISD (MRCISD), coupled cluster with single and double excitations (CCSD), CCSD with perturbative triples [CCSD(T)], CCSD with iterative partial triple excitations (CCSDT-3 and CC3), and full triples (CCSDT) coupled cluster methods. Four correlation consistent polarized valence (cc-pVXZ) type basis sets were used. The AlAlO system is rather challenging theoretically. The two isomers are confirmed to have linear structures at all levels of theory. The symmetric isomer AlOAl is predicted to lie 81.9 kcal mol(-1) below the asymmetric isomer AlAlO at the cc-pV(Q+d)Z CCSD(T) level of theory. The predicted harmonic vibrational frequencies for the X (1)Sigma(g) (+) AlOAl molecule, omega(1)=517 cm(-1), omega(2)=95 cm(-1), and omega(3)=1014 cm(-1), are in good agreement with experimental values. The harmonic vibrational frequencies for the X (1)Sigma(+) AlAlO structure, omega(1)=1042 cm(-1), omega(2)=73 cm(-1), and omega(3)=253 cm(-1), presently have no experimental values with which to be compared. With the same methods the barrier heights for the isomerization AlOAl-->AlAlO and AlAlO-->AlOAl reactions were predicted to be 84.3 and 2.4 kcal mol(-1), respectively. The dissociation energies D(0) for AlOAl (X (1)Sigma(g) (+)) and AlAlO (X (1)Sigma(+))-->AlO (X (2)Sigma(+))+Al ((2)P) were determined to be 130.8 and 48.9 kcal mol(-1), respectively. Thus, both symmetric AlOAl (X (1)Sigma(g) (+)) and asymmetric AlAlO (X (1)Sigma(+)) isomers are expected to be thermodynamically stable with respect to the dissociation into AlO (X (2)Sigma(+)) + Al ((2)P) and kinetically stable for the isomerization reaction (AlAlO-->AlOAl) at sufficiently low temperatures.     

Dissociative double ionization of CO2: dynamics, energy levels, and lifetime

In a kinematically complete experiment on the dissociative double ionization of CO2 by electron impact, spontaneous and metastable decay have been observed via the channel CO2(2+) --> CO+ + O+. The metastable decay shows a lifetime of 5.8 +/- 1.5 micros. The measured kinetic energy release spectrum of the dissociation shows one broad peak. To understand the observed features, ab initio potential energy surface (PES) for the ground electronic state of CO2(2+) was computed using a multireference configuration interaction method and a correlation-consistent polarized-valence quadruple-zeta basis set, for a range of internuclear distances and O-C-O bond angles, and an analytic fit of the PES was obtained. The computed PES clearly indicates the metastability of the dication and yields a barrier height and an asymptotic limit in fair agreement with the reported data. A time-dependent quantum mechanical approach was used to compute the ground vibrational state wave function of CO2 in its ground electronic state. Assuming a Franck-Condon transition, the same function was taken to be the initial wave function at time t = 0 for the time evolution on the fitted PES for the ground electronic state of CO2(2+). The autocorrelation function was computed and Fourier transformed to obtain the excitation spectrum. Upon convolution with the instrument resolution function, the kinetic energy release spectrum was obtained, in good agreement with the experimental results, particularly at lower energies. The discrepancies at higher energies are attributed to the noninclusion of the excited states of CO2(2+) in the dynamical study.     

On the stability and lifetime of GaO2+ in the gas phase

The electronic structure, stability, and lifetime of GaO²⁺ have been investigated using high-level ab initio calculations. The potential energy curves have been calculated at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pV5Z and at the MS-CASPT2/ANO-RCC levels of theory. Lifetimes were evaluated using the Exterior Complex Scaling (ECS) method and B-spline basis functions. Our calculations show that GaO²⁺ is a metastable species in the gas phase, since the diatomic dication, in its ground state, lies 97.1?kcal/mol above the Ga⁺ (¹S)?+?O⁺ (⁴S) dissociation limit. However, the energy barrier that has to be overcome to reach this limit is 3?kcal/mol high so that five vibrational resonances can be accommodated between the bottom of the well and the top of the barrier. The evaluated lifetimes vary from hundreds of femtoseconds to approximately 1?s, so at least two of them have long enough lifetimes (1?s and 91???s) to be detected using mass spectrometry techniques, in agreement with the experimental evidence. In the experiment (Fiser et al. in Eur J Mass Spectrom 15:315?C324, 2009), GaO²⁺ was observed for an ion flight time of about ~12???s through a magnetic-sector mass spectrometer and unambiguously identified by its isotopic abundance. Our results also show that isotopic effects on the resonances?? energies and on their lifetimes, when ⁷⁰Ga is replaced by ⁶⁹Ga or ⁷¹Ga, are very small (~0.1 and ~1%, respectively), reflecting the large mass of the system.     

Further studies on the origins of asymmetric charge partitioning in protein homodimers

Dissociation of gas-phase protonated protein dimers into their constituent monomers can result in either symmetric or asymmetric charge partitioning. Dissociation of alpha-lactalbumin homodimers with 15+ charges results in a symmetric, but broad, distribution of protein monomers with charge states centered around 8+/7+. In contrast, dissociation of the 15+ heterodimer consisting of one molecule in the oxidized form and one in the reduced form results in highly asymmetric charge partitioning in which the reduced species carries away predominantly 11+ charges, and the oxidized molecule carries away 4+ charges. This result cannot be adequately explained by differential charging occurring either in solution or in the electrospray process, but appears to be best explained by the reduced species unfolding upon activation in the gas phase with subsequent separation and proton transfer to the unfolding species in the dissociation complex to minimize Coulomb repulsion. For dimers of cytochrome c formed directly from solution, the 17+ charge state undergoes symmetric charge partitioning whereas dissociation of the 13+ is asymmetric. Reduction of the charge state of dimers with 17+ charges to 13+ via gas-phase proton transfer and subsequent dissociation of the mass selected 13+ ions results in a symmetric charge partitioning. This result clearly shows that the structure of the dimer ions with 13+ charges depends on the method of ion formation and that the structural difference is responsible for the symmetric versus asymmetric charge partitioning observed. This indicates that the asymmetry observed when these ions are formed directly from solution must come about due either to differences in the monomer conformations in the dimer that exist in solution or that occur during the electrospray ionization process. These results provide additional evidence for the origin of charge asymmetry that occurs in the dissociation of multiply charged protein complexes and indicate that some solution-phase information can be obtained from these gas-phase dissociation experiments.     

A comparative basis-set study of NeH+ using coupled-cluster techniques

Unrestricted Hartree-Fock, coupled-cluster calculations are reported for the ground state of NeH⁺ using atomic basis sets of increasing size and accuracy for both Ne and H. The goal is to determine the basis set and coupled-cluster level of calculation needed to obtain a NeH⁺ potential energy curve of known accuracy. Here, it is shown that calculations using a quintuple zeta basis at the coupled-cluster singles and doubles level with noniterative triples, CCSD(T) , predict a Ne—H bond dissociation energy that is within about 0.01 eV of the exact Born–Oppenheimer molecular electronic structure result. Spectroscopic constants determined using the Simons–Parr–Finlan procedure are found to be in very good agreement with the experimental results. Calculations at the augmented quadruple zeta level for the two lowest triplet excited states of the NeH⁺ species are presented. Both of these states separate into ground-state Ne⁺ and H(1s). The resulting potential curves predict stable minima at the SCF, CCSD, and CCSD(T) levels with dissociation energies of about 0.07 eV. Spectroscopic constants from the potential curves and dissociation constants are reported. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

High-resolution FTIR, microwave, and ab initio investigations of CH2 79BrF: ground, v(5) = 1, and v(6) = 1, 2 state constants

A spectroscopic study of CH279BrF in the infrared and microwave regions has been carried out. The rovibrational spectrum of the nu5 fundamental interacting with 2nu6 has been investigated by high-resolution FTIR spectroscopy. Owing to the weakness of the 2nu6 band, the v6 = 2 state constants have been derived from v6 = 1. For this reason, the rotational spectra of the ground and v6 = 1 states have been observed by means of microwave spectroscopy. Highly accurate ab initio computations have also been performed at the CCSD(T) level of theory in order to support the experimental investigation. As far as the nu5 band is concerned, the analysis of the rovibrational structure led to the identification of more than 3000 transitions, allowing the determination of a set of spectroscopic parameters up to sextic distortion terms and pointing out first-order c-type Coriolis interaction with the v6 = 2 state. With regard to the pure rotational spectra measurements, the assignment of several DeltaJ = 0, +1 transitions allowed the determination of the rotational, all the quartic, and most of the sextic centrifugal distortion constants, as well as the full bromine quadrupole coupling tensor for both the ground and v6 = 1 states.     

A theoretical study of spectroscopy and metastability of the CN dication

Potential energy curves of low-lying electronic states of the CN²⁺ dication and of the electronic ground states of CN⁺ and the neutral CN molecule were calculated using internally contracted multireference CI and the coupled cluster RCCSD(T) methods. Spectroscopic constants and adiabatic excitation energies of 13 quasibound electronic states of the dication were obtained and the energy of charge stripping of CN⁺ and double ionization energy of CN were predicted. Tunneling and spin-orbit induced predissociation lifetimes for the vibrational levels in the low-lying electronic states are presented and the metastability of the dication is discussed.     

Ab initio calculations for the potential curves and spin–orbit coupling of Mg2

 The ground state and several low-lying excited states of the Mg₂ dimer have been studied by means of a combination of the complete-active-space multiconfiguration self-consistent-field (CASSCF)/CAS multireference second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2) method and coupled-cluster with single and double excitations and perturbative contribution of connected triple excitations [CCSD(T)] scheme. Reasonably good agreement with experiment has been obtained for the CCSD(T) ground-state potential curve but the dissociation energy of the only experimentally known A¹Σ _u ⁺ excited state of Mg₂ is somewhat overestimated at the CASSCF/CASPT2 level. The spectroscopic constants D _e, R _e and ω_e deduced from the calculated potential curves for other states are also reported. In addition, some spin–orbit matrix elements between the excited singlet and triplet states of Mg₂ have been evaluated as a function of internuclear separation. Received: 10 May 2001 / Accepted: 15 August 2001 / Published online: 30 October 2001     

Potential energy surfaces for the molecular and free radical dissociations of H2CS,F2CS and Cl2CS: An ab initio SCF MO study

Energies along the planar symmetric (C_2v) and planar assymetric (C_s paths to molecular dissociation of the ground state thiocarbonyl halides, F₂CS and Cl₂CS, together with their transition state geometries, have been calculated by ab initio SCF MO methods using the STO-3G and 4-31G basis sets. For comparison, results on H₂CS at similar levels of calculation are also included in this report. In addition, the 4-31G^** basis set has been employed to predict the geometries of the ground state species and the endothermicities of their free radical dissociations. The results of experiments in which the lowest excited singlet states of these molecules have been photoexcited are interpreted in light of these calculations. Thermodynamic data for both molecular and free radical dissociations are evaluated and discussed.     

PdYn±(n=0, 1, 2, 3)分子离子的结构与稳定性

在Pd和Y原子相对论有效原子实势和基函数SDD下, 使用密度泛函理论B3LYP方法对PdYn±(n=0, 1, 2, 3)分子离子的势能曲线与稳定性进行计算研究, 结果表明, PdY分子和PdY−, PdY2−, PdY3−与PdY+分子离子的基态电子状态分别为X2Σ、X1Σ、X2Σ、X1Σ、X1Σ, 能稳定存在, 势能函数可用Murrell-Sorbie函数表达, 并计算得到相应的力常数与光谱数据; PdY2+和PdY3+分子离子的基态分别为X2Σ和X1Σ, 是亚稳定态, PdY3+分子离子的三重态是排斥态, 不能稳定存在.     

Spectroscopic properties of molecular anions of astrophysical and laboratory interest

Spectroscopic constants and molecular properties of the selected six diatomic anions of astrophysical and laboratory interest namely, FO⁻, CCl⁻, NS⁻, ClO⁻, ClF⁻ and AlS⁻ in their ground state have been studied in detail using hybrid HF/DF B3LYP method. The effect of basis set on spectroscopic properties has been studied with systematic improvement of basis set from aug-cc-pVDZ to aug-cc-pV5Z. The values of the spectroscopic constants and molecular properties obtained with these basis sets have been extrapolated to the complete basis set (CBS) limit. The spectroscopic properties calculated with the aug-cc-pV5Z basis set are very close to those at the CBS limit and these values agree very well with the theoretical and experimental results wherever available. Many of the spectroscopic constants and molecular properties of these anions are new and in particular those for ClF⁻ and AlS⁻ are first reported.     

Modeling Photo-dissociation Dynamics of HBr+ by Vibrational Wave-packet Formalism

Photo dissociation dynamics of diatomic molecular ion HBr⁺ interacting with ultra fast laser pulses of different envelop function has been presented both in zero and non zero temperature environment. The calculations pertain primarily to the ground electronic state of the molecular ion HBr+. The used potential of HBr⁺ is calibrated with the help of the ab initio theoretical calculation at the CCSD/6-311++G(3df, 2pd) level and then fitted with appropriate Morse parameters. The numerical bound states vibrational eigenvalues obtained by the time independent Fourier Grid Hamiltonian method have been compared with analytical values of the fitted Morse potential. The effect of temperature, pulse envelops function, and light intensity on the dissociation process has been explored.