Vibrational analysis of the electronic spectrum of ethylene based onab initio SCF-CI calculations

Ab initio calculations for CH₂ twisting and CC stretching vibrational wavefunctions and energy levels are reported for various electronic states of ethylene C₂H₄. Electronic transition moments between these states are also obtained to allow a calculation of the oscillator strengths for vibrational transitions involved in various electronic band systems; from this study it is concluded that thevertical electronic energy differenceΔE _e may differ significantly from the energy of the absorption maximumΔE _max with which it is often equated. In particular it is found in the case of theπ→π ^* singlet-singlet excitation of ethylene that theΔE _e value overestimates the most probable vibrational transition energy (7.89 eV) by some 0.4 eV, thereby offering an explanation for the fact that previous attempts to predict the location of theV-N Franck-Condon absorption maximum have consistently obtained substantially higher results than the 7.66 eV value actually observed. Similar calculations for various Rydberg species and for theN-T transition are also found to obtain a quite consistent representation of the electronic spectrum of this system.