Ab initio determination of the torsional spectra of acetic acid

The torsional potential energy surface and the favourite geometries of acetic acid are determined with MP4/cc-p VTZ ab initio calculations. The molecule shows two planar trans and cis conformers whose energy difference is 1882.7 cm^?1. Both minimum energy geometries are separated by a barrier of 4432.1 cm^?1. The most stable trans-conformer shows a quite low methyl torsion barrier of 169.8 cm^?1. The roto-torsional energy levels have been calculated up to J = 10. The two torsional fundamental frequencies of the trans-conformer, the methyl and the OH torsion are 82.857 (A²) and 77.050cm^?1 (E) and 568.532 (A²) and 568.418cm^?1 (E). The V₃ barrier causes a splitting of 0.315cm^?1 in the ground vibrational state where the quartic centrifugal distortion constants have been predicted to be D_J = 90.4kHz, D_JK = ?301.5kHz and D_K = 165.4kHz. Finally, the far-infrared spectra of two isotopomers have been simulated from ab initio calculations.