Interpretation of semiclassical transition moments through wave function expansion of dipole moment functions with applications to the OH stretching spectra of simple acids and alcohols.

Abstract

Semiclassical description of molecular vibrations has provided us with various computational approximations and enhanced our conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics. In this study, the transition moments of the OH stretching fundamental and overtone intensities (Δv = 1-6) of some alcohols and acids are calculated by three kinds of semiclassical methods, correspondence-principle (CP) approximation, quasiclassical approximation, and uniform WKB approximation, and their respective transition moments are compared to those by the quantum theory. On the basis of the local mode picture, the one-dimensional potential energy curves and the dipole moment functions (DMFs) were obtained by density functional theory calculations and then fitted to Morse functions and sixth-order polynomials, respectively. It was shown that both the transition energies and the absorption intensities derived in the semiclassical methods reproduced their respective quantum values. In particular, the CP approximation reproduces the quantum transition moments if the formula given by Naccache is used for the action integral value. On the basis of these semiclassical results, we present a picture to understand the small variance in the overtone intensities of these acids and alcohols. Another important result is the ratios of semiclassical-to-quantum transition moment are almost independent of the applied molecules even with a great molecular variance of the DMFs, and they depend only on the nature of the semiclassical approximations and the quantum number. The difference between the semiclassical and quantum transition moments was analyzed in terms of a hitherto unrecognized concept that the Fourier expansion of the time dependent DMF in the CP treatment is a kind of the wave function expansion method using trigonometric functions as the quotient functions. For a Morse oscillator, we derive the analytic and approximate expressions of the quotient functions in terms of the bond displace coordinate in both the CP and the quantum mechanical frameworks and discuss the methodological dependence of the calculated transition moments. As a byproduct, we have found a simple derivation of the DMF expression first derived by Timm and Mecke long time ago.