Parity and angular momentum

Consider now spin-allowed transitions. The parity and angular momentum selection rules forbid pure d d transitions. Once again the rule is absolute. It is our description of the wavefunctions that is at fault. Suppose we enquire about a d-d transition in a tetrahedral complex. It might be supposed that the parity rule is inoperative here, since the tetrahedron has no centre of inversion to which the d orbitals and the light operator can be symmetry classified. But, this is not at all true for two reasons, one being empirical (which is more of an observation than a reason) and one theoretical. The empirical reason is that if the parity rule were irrelevant, the intensities of d-d bands in tetrahedral molecules could be fully allowed and as strong as those we observe in dyes, for example. In fact, the d-d bands in tetrahedral species are perhaps two or three orders of magnitude weaker than many fully allowed transitions. 

It is easy to show, by invoking parity and angular momentum conservation, that the polarization part of the state vector describing the pair written ... 

Thus, the chemical interconversion for equal electronic parity channels has four separated aspects i) activation via molding of reactants ii) population of TS rovibrational quantum states iii) population of reactants molded into configurations covered by the TS, and iv) relaxation towards products in their ground states. All such changes are submitted to energy and angular momentum conservation rules. 

To each ionic state Jj and angular momentum transfer jx belongs a reduced scattering amplitude S jt) - the name for which originates from the formulation of photoionization as a half-scattering process. (In a scattering process with real particles the scattered particle still exists after the interaction, but in photoionization the primary incident particle, the photon, is annihilated.) The angular momentum transfer formulation allows a partition of the amplitudes into two classes, parity-favoured and parity-unfavoured, where... 

The quantum numbers tliat are appropriate to describe tire vibrational levels of a quasilinear complex such as Ar-HCl are tluis tire monomer vibrational quantum number v, an intennolecular stretching quantum number n and two quantum numbers j and K to describe tire hindered rotational motion. For more rigid complexes, it becomes appropriate to replace j and K witli nonnal-mode vibrational quantum numbers, tliough tliere is an awkw ard intennediate regime in which neitlier description is satisfactory see [3] for a discussion of tire transition between tire two cases. In addition, tliere is always a quantum number J for tire total angular momentum (excluding nuclear spin). The total parity (symmetry under space-fixed inversion of all coordinates) is also a conserved quantity tliat is spectroscopically important. 

In these equations, J and M are quantum numbers associated with the angular momentum operators and J, respectively. The number II = 0, 1 is a parity quantum number that specifies the symmetry or antisymmetry of the column vector with respect to the inversion of the nuclei through G. Note that the same parity quantum number II appears for and Also, the... 

For any nuclear decay, such as the emission of a y-ray, the angular momentum and parity must be conserved. Therefore, ify,H and H are the spins and parities of the initial and final levels, and L and H are the angular momentum and parity carried off by the y-ray. 

We first inquire as to the constants of the motion in this situation. Since h is invariant under the group of spatial rotations, and under spatial inversions, the total angular momentum and the parity operator are constants of the motion. The total angular momentum operator is... 

The theory behind body-fixed representations and the associated angular momentum function expansions of the wavefunction (or wave packet) in terms of bases parameterized by the relevant constants of the motion and approximate constants of the motion is highly technical. Some pertinent results will simply be stated. The two good constants of the motion are total angular momentum, J, and parity, p = +1 or 1. An approximate constant of the motion is K, the body-fixed projection of total angular momentum on the body-fixed axis. For simplicity, we will restrict attention to the helicity-decoupled or centrifugal sudden (CS) approximation in which K can be assumed to be a constant of the motion. In terms of aU its components, and the iteration number k, the real wave packet is taken to be [21]... 

Transitions between states are subject to certain restrictions called selection rules. The conservation of angular momentum and the parity of the spherical harmonics limit transitions for hydrogen-like atoms to those for which A/ = 1 and for which Am = 0, 1. Thus, an observed spectral line vq in the absence of the magnetic field, given by equation (6.83), is split into three lines with wave numbers vq + (/ bB/he), vq, and vq — (HbB/he). 

---