Theoretical investigation of the binding of a positron to vibrational excited states of hydrogen cyanide molecule

Abstract

We theoretically analyzed positron affinities (PA) of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecule at vibrational excited states to elucidate the effect of molecular vibrations on the binding of a positron to the molecule. Using the configuration interaction method in the multi-component molecular orbital theory and anharmonic vibrational state analysis with the variational Monte Carlo technique, we found that the vibrational excitations of the CN and CH stretching modes enhance the PA value compared to that of the vibrational ground state, whereas the excitation of bending mode deenhances it. The largest PA enhancement is found at the excited states of the CH stretching mode; the PA values are 43.02 (1) and 46.34 (2) meV for the fundamental tone and overtone states, respectively. With the linear regression analysis, we confirmed that the PA variation of HCN molecule at each vibrational state arises from the variation of permanent dipole moment and dipole-polarizability due to each vibrational excitation.