Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.112, No.7, 1480-1492, 2008
Tunneling splittings for "O center dot center dot center dot O Stretching" and other vibrations of tropolone isotopomers observed in the infrared spectrum below 800 cm(-1)
Fourier transform infrared absorption spectra containing evidence for about two dozen spectral tunneling doublets are reported for gaseous tropolone(OH), tropolone (OD), and O-18,O-18-tropolone(OH) in the 800 to 300 cm(-1) spectral range. No FTIR absorption was detected in the 300-150 cm(-1) range. The known zeropoint (ZP) tunneling splitting values Delta(0) = 0.974 cm(-1) for tropolone(OH) (Tanaka et al.) and 0.051 cm(-1) for tropolone(OD) (Keske et al.) allow vibrational state-specific tunneling splittings Delta(nu) to be estimated for fundamentals including three with strong O center dot center dot center dot O stretching displacements [cf. for tropolone(OH) nu(13)(al) = 435.22 cm(-1) with (H)Delta(13) = 1.71 cm(-1) = 1.76 (H)Delta(0), and for tropolone(OD) nu(13)(a(1)) = 429.65 cm(-1) With (D)Delta(13) = 0.32 cm(-1) = 6.27 (D)Delta(0)]. The majority of A, splittings in the sub-800 cm-1 range are dilated relative to the isotopomer Delta(0) values. The FTIR spectra demonstrate the presence of dynamic couplings and potential function anharmonicity in addition to revealing A, splittings and many OH/D and O-18/O-16 isotope effects. Approximate values are obtained for the ZP splittings (88)Delta(0) and (86)Delta(0) of the doubly and singly O-18-labeled isotopomers of tropolone(OH). The diverse values of the observed Delta(nu)/Delta(0) splitting ratios underscore the inherent multidimensionality and corner-cutting activities entering the state-specific tunneling processes of the tropolone tautomerization reaction.