Multireference configuration interaction study on spectroscopic parameters and molecular constants of PO and PO+

The highly accurate valence internally contracted multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) approach has been employed to investigate the potential energy curves (PECs) for the X²Π, b⁴Σ^?, C²Σ^? states of PO and the X¹Σ⁺ state of PO⁺. For these electronic states, the spectroscopic parameters of the isotopes (P¹⁶O, P¹⁸O, P¹⁶O⁺, and P¹⁸O⁺) have been determined and compared with those of the investigations reported in the literature. The comparison shows that excellent agreement exists between the present results and the available experiments. With the PECs determined here, the first 30 vibrational states for P¹⁶O(X²Π, b⁴Σ^?), P¹⁸O(X²Π, b⁴Σ^?), P¹⁶O⁺(X¹Σ⁺), and P¹⁸O⁺(X¹Σ⁺) are computed when the rotational quantum number J equals zero (J = 0). The vibrational level G(υ), inertial rotation constant B_υ and centrifugal distortion constant D_υ are determined when J = 0. All the results of vibrational states except for P¹⁶O (X²Π) are reported for the first time. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011