# Nonadiabatic vibrational dynamics in the HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O complex

Hamm, Peter; Stock, Gerhard (2015). Nonadiabatic vibrational dynamics in the HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O complex. Journal of Chemical Physics, 143(13):134308.

## Abstract

Based on extensive ab initio calculations and the time-propagation of the nuclear Schrödinger equation, we study the vibrational relaxation dynamics and resulting spectral signatures of the OH stretch vibration of a hydrogen-bonded complex, HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O. Despite their smallness, it has been shown experimentally by Johnson and coworkers that the gas-phase infrared spectra of these types of complexes exhibit much of the complexity commonly observed for hydrogen-bonded systems. That is, the OH stretch band exhibits a significant red shift together with an extreme broadening and a pronounced substructure, which reflects its very strong anharmonicity. Employing an adiabatic separation of time scales between the three intramolecular high-frequency modes of the water molecule and the three most important intermolecular low-frequency modes of the complex, we calculate potential energy surfaces (PESs) of the ground and the first excited states of the high-frequency modes and identify a vibrational conical intersection between the PESs of the OH stretch fundamental and the HOH bend overtone. By performing a time-dependent propagation of the resulting system, we show that the conical intersection affects a coherent population transfer between the two states, the first step of which being ultrafast (60 fs) and irreversible. The subsequent relaxation of vibrational energy into the HOH bend and ground state occurs incoherently but also quite fast (1 ps), although the corresponding PESs are well separated in energy. Owing to the smaller effective mass difference between light and heavy degrees of freedom, the adiabatic ansatz is consequently less significant for vibrations than in the electronic case. Based on the model, we consider several approximations to calculate the measured Ar-tag action spectrum of HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O and achieve semiquantitative agreement with the experiment.

## Abstract

Based on extensive ab initio calculations and the time-propagation of the nuclear Schrödinger equation, we study the vibrational relaxation dynamics and resulting spectral signatures of the OH stretch vibration of a hydrogen-bonded complex, HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O. Despite their smallness, it has been shown experimentally by Johnson and coworkers that the gas-phase infrared spectra of these types of complexes exhibit much of the complexity commonly observed for hydrogen-bonded systems. That is, the OH stretch band exhibits a significant red shift together with an extreme broadening and a pronounced substructure, which reflects its very strong anharmonicity. Employing an adiabatic separation of time scales between the three intramolecular high-frequency modes of the water molecule and the three most important intermolecular low-frequency modes of the complex, we calculate potential energy surfaces (PESs) of the ground and the first excited states of the high-frequency modes and identify a vibrational conical intersection between the PESs of the OH stretch fundamental and the HOH bend overtone. By performing a time-dependent propagation of the resulting system, we show that the conical intersection affects a coherent population transfer between the two states, the first step of which being ultrafast (60 fs) and irreversible. The subsequent relaxation of vibrational energy into the HOH bend and ground state occurs incoherently but also quite fast (1 ps), although the corresponding PESs are well separated in energy. Owing to the smaller effective mass difference between light and heavy degrees of freedom, the adiabatic ansatz is consequently less significant for vibrations than in the electronic case. Based on the model, we consider several approximations to calculate the measured Ar-tag action spectrum of HCO$^-_2$⋅H$_2$O and achieve semiquantitative agreement with the experiment.

## Statistics

### Citations

Dimensions.ai Metrics
13 citations in Web of Science®
13 citations in Scopus®

### Altmetrics

Detailed statistics

Item Type: Journal Article, refereed, original work 07 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry 540 Chemistry Physical Sciences > General Physics and Astronomy Physical Sciences > Physical and Theoretical Chemistry English 7 October 2015 16 Dec 2015 10:27 30 Jul 2020 19:33 American Institute of Physics 0021-9606 Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) through the NCCR MUST Copyright 2015 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The article appeared in J. Chem. Phys. 143, 134308 (2015) and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4932189 Green https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4932189 : FunderSNSF: Grant ID: Project TitleSwiss National Science Foundation (SNF) through the NCCR MUST