Application of Permutation-Inversion Group Theory to Interpretation of the Microwave Absorption Spectrum of Dimethyl Methylphosphonate

Published

January 1, 2002

Author(s)

N Ohashi, Jon T. Hougen

Abstract

The G36 permutation-inversion group theoretical tunneling-rotational formalism originally developed for the methanol dimer has been modified (for the subgroup G18) and extended (to the larger group G54) for application to dimethyl methylphosphonate CH3-P(=O)-(OCH3)2, which has three large-amplitude methyl top internal rotation motions and one large-amplitude methoxy interchange motion. Energy levels of this chiral molecule are conveniently labeled by symmetry species corresponding to the mixture of irreducible and reducible representations of G18 denoted by A1, A2, E, E1sep, E2sep, and Gsep. The separably degenerate species (with subscript sep) consist of pairs of irreducible representations of G18 whose energies are degenerate for Hamiltonians invariant to time reversal. All characters of these separably degenerate representations are real. Comparison of the group-theoretically derived splitting patterns with Fourier transform microwave and ab initio results from the preceding paper permit drawing of a semi-quantitative energy level diagram showing how a given Ka = 0 level splits into A1 A2 2E E1sep E2sep 2Gsep components when the large-amplitude motions are turned on in the order: (i) low-barrier methyl top internal rotation, (ii) medium-barrier methyl top internal rotation, (iii) top-top interaction, and (iv) methoxy interchange motion. (Internal rotation of the high-barrier methyl top is ignored.) Spectral splitting patterns observed for Ka = 1 - 1 transitions are also quite regular, being either the same as, or mirror images of, the Ka = 0 - 0 patterns. Theoretical work on Ka > 0 splitting patterns is thus in progress.

Citation

Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy

Volume

211

Issue

No. 1

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Dimethyl methylphosphonate, energy levels, internal rotation, permutation-inversion group, separable degeneracies, tunneling-rotation splittings

Citation

Ohashi, N. and Hougen, J. (2002), Application of Permutation-Inversion Group Theory to Interpretation of the Microwave Absorption Spectrum of Dimethyl Methylphosphonate, Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy (Accessed April 25, 2024)