Geometric and electronic structure of ground and excited states of groupVA diatomics. A theoretical LCGTO-MP-LSD study

LCGTO-MP-LSD calculation was performed for the ground and several low-lying excited states of homo- (N₂, P₂, As₂, and Sb₂) and hetero-nuclear (PN, AsN, AsP, AsSb, SbN, and SbP) groupVA diatomics. For all the systems the ground state is found to be¹Σ⁺. For N₂ and P₂, the¹Σ _g ⁺ ground state is followed by the³Σ _u ⁺ ,³Π _g ,³Δ _u ,¹Π _g , and¹Δ _u low-lying exited states while for As₂ the order is found to be³Σ _u ⁺ ,³Δ _u ,³Π _g ,¹Δ _u ,¹Π _g . Finally for Sb₂ the relative stability of excited states is³Σ _u ⁺ ,³Δ _u ,¹Δ _u ,³Π _g ,¹Π _g . For the hetero-nuclear diatomics the¹Σ⁺ ground state is, in the case of PN, AsN, AsP, SbN, and SbP, followed by the³Σ⁺,³Δ,³Π,¹Π and¹Δ low-lying excited states while for the AsSb diatomic an inversion of stability of the two last singlets occurs. The calculated spectroscopic parameters (Re, ωe, andDe) are in good agreement with all the available experimental results while, theTe values are overestimated by about 0.5 eV. Mulliken population analysis shows that both homo- and hetero-nuclear groupVA diatomics are essentially triple bonded systems.