Computational studies of vibrational spectra and molecular properties of 6-methyluracil using HF, DFT and MP2 methods

Theoretical investigations of atomic charges, conformers, frontier molecular orbitals, molecular geometries, thermodynamic properties, hyperpolarizabilities and harmonic vibrational frequencies of 6-methyluracil (6MU) have been carried out using ab initio Hartree-Fock (HF), density functional theory (DFT) and second order M?ller-Plesset (MP2) methods. All calculations were performed using the GAMESS-US program package with the basis sets 6-31G(d,p) and 6-311G(d,p). FT-IR and Raman spectra of 6MU were recorded in the regions 50–4000 cm⁻¹ and 60–4000 cm⁻¹ respectively. Optimized geometries were obtained using the global optimization procedure. The calculated structural parameters for two conformers of 6MU have been compared with experimentally observed values. The energy barrier (ΔE=ELUMO-EHOMO) between the HOMO and LUMO is predicted on the basis of theoretical calculations. The simulated TD-DFT spectrum has been compared with experimental electronic spectrum for 6MU. The calculated potential energy distribution (PED) values have been utilized to perform vibrational assignment of the infrared and Raman spectra.