Empirical rovibrational energy levels for nitrous oxide

Abstract

A survey of the huge number of measured rovibrational transitions of the 14N216O isotopologue of nitrous oxide is performed which either confirms the positions, the assignments, and the uncertainties of the measurements or refutes at least one of them. Data from 95 literature sources are analyzed and their assignments adjusted to a uniform set of polyads and associated counting numbers. This is an important result of the present study and this canonical set of vibrational state assignments is recommended for future studies. The adjusted list of 67930 transitions (43246 unique ones) then underwent a thorough Marvel (Measured Active Rotational–Vibrational Energy Levels) analysis, yielding 17561 empirical rovibrational energy levels. Uncertainties for these levels are determined using a newly implemented bootstrap approach. The bootstrap uncertainties indicate that the uncertainties for about 1.5% of the energy levels had to be increased significantly, often by more than 10 times compared to previous level uncertainty estimates. This study yields empirical values for 78 band origins of 14N216O for states with ℓ=0, where ℓ is the vibrational angular momentum quantum number. The measured transitions and the empirical energy levels are compared to the SISAM and the recent NOSL-296 line lists with the result that while the overall agreement is good, there are still a number of issues requiring further careful experimental and modeling studies.