Correlation field interaction

In the gase phase, the infrared bands are broad (50 cm ), due to the rotational structure, overlapping vibrations, and hot transitions. In the solid state, the rotational motions are quenched, but due to intermolecular (hydrogen bond) and correlation field interactions, the band positions are shifted and the bands are even broader. The infrared absorptions of matrix-isolated molecules are close to the gas-phase frequencies and exhibit a sharp line-like character (half-widths 0.1 to 2 cm ). Hence the spectra of matrix-isolated molecules are less complicated, and, in comparison to gas phase or solid state spectra, the sensitivity and selectivity of detection increase by a factor of about 10 to 100. Closely spaced vibrations attributed to mixtures of similar molecules, such as conformers, rotamers, molecular complexes, or isotopic species, e.g., H C104 and H CI04, are easily distinguished. 

By expressing the mean-field interaction of an electron at r with the N- 1 other electrons in temis of a probability density pyy r ) that is independent of the fact that another electron resides at r, the mean-field models ignore spatial correlations among the electrons. In reality, as shown in figure B3.T5 the conditional probability density for finding one ofA - 1 electrons at r, given that one electron is at r depends on r. The absence of a spatial correlation is a direct consequence of the spin-orbital product nature of the mean-field wavefiinctions... 

This way of expressing the overall modes for the pair of molecular units is only approximate, and it assumes that intramolecular coupling exceeds in-termolecular coupling. The frequency difference between the two antisymmetric modes arising in the pair of molecules jointly will depend on both the intra- and intermolecular interaction force constants. Obviously the algebraic details are a bit complicated, but the idea of intermolecular coupling subject to the symmetry restrictions based on the symmetry of the entire unit cell is a simple and powerful one. It is this symmetry-restricted intermolecular correlation of the molecular vibrational modes which causes the correlation field splittings. 

Recently, the 5-function model has also been employed to analyze high-pressure results on LaCl3 Pr3+ and LaCl3 Nd3+ (Burdick and Troster, 2003). This model assumes the dominant contributions to the correlation crystal field interactions arising from paired electrons within the same orbital. It has been shown that this model is capable to greatly improve the description of anomalous multiplets like the lT>2 multiplet of Pr3+ at ambient pressure (Burdick and Richardson, 1997). 

Moreover, many of these studies concern themselves only with very low concentrations of defects (N) such that the volume per defect (l/N) is very much larger than the volume over which individual defect fields interact (47tr//3, where Tc is the correlation length). 

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