Theoretical studies of excited states of H3O and of core-excited NH3: Comparisons with equivalent core analysis of NH3 core-excitation spectra and implications for the radiation chemistry of aqueous systems

The H₃O radical has been studied within the ab initio LCAO SCF MO model. A flexible basis set including diffuse basis functions at both O and H has been used in order to represent the excited states adequately. Calculated excitation energies are 1.87, 2.87–3.16, and 3.36–3.47 eV; the calculated ionization energy is 4.75 eV. These represent well the experimental values (good to ±0.3 eV) of 1.6, 2.9, and 3.5 eV for excitation, and 5.0 eV for ionization, deduced by equivalent core analysis of high energy electron impact energy loss studies of NH₃. Similar explicit calculations on the N-1s core-excited states of NH₃ have also been made to examine directly the equivalent core concept. “Excited states” (relative to the lowest bound core-excited state) at 1.72, 2.85–3.09, and 3.32 eV, and the “ionization energy” of 4.68 eV, agree well with experiment and support the equivalent core concept. The possible significance of these H₃O results in the radiation chemistry of aqueous media is discussed in view of the fact that the maximum in the absorption spectrum of the hydrated electron lies near that of H₃O.