Selection rules oscillator

Before presenting the quantum mechanical description of a hannonic oscillator and selection rules, it is worthwhile presenting the energy level expressions that the reader is probably already familiar with. A vibrational mode v, witii an equilibrium frequency of (in wavenumbers) has energy levels (also in... 

The electric dipole selection rule for a hannonic oscillator is Av = 1. Because real molecules are not hannonic, transitions with Av > 1 are weakly allowed, with Av = 2 being more allowed than Av = 3 and so on. There are other selection niles for quadnipole and magnetic dipole transitions, but those transitions are six to eight orders of magnitude weaker than electric dipole transitions, and we will therefore not concern ourselves with them. 

The transition between levels coupled by the oscillating magnetic field B corresponds to the absorption of the energy required to reorient the electron magnetic moment in a magnetic field. EPR measurements are a study of the transitions between electronic Zeeman levels with A = 1 (the selection rule for EPR). 

Polyatomic molecules vibrate in a very complicated way, but, expressed in temis of their normal coordinates, atoms or groups of atoms vibrate sinusoidally in phase, with the same frequency. Each mode of motion functions as an independent hamionic oscillator and, provided certain selection rules are satisfied, contributes a band to the vibrational spectr um. There will be at least as many bands as there are degrees of freedom, but the frequencies of the normal coordinates will dominate the vibrational spectrum for simple molecules. An example is water, which has a pair of infrared absorption maxima centered at about 3780 cm and a single peak at about 1580 cm (nist webbook). 

Experimental. The vibrational spectrum of an ideal harmonic oscillator would consist of one line at frequency v corresponding to A = hv, where A is the distance between levels on the vertical energy axis in Fig. 10-la. In the harmonic oscillator, AE is the same for a transition from one energy level to an adjacent level. A selection rule An = 1, where n is the vibrational quantum number, requires that the transition be to an adjacent level. 

The selection rules illustrated above are general, as they depend only on the symmetry properties of the functions involved. However, more limiting, selection rules depend on the form of the wavefunctions involved. A relatively simple example of the development of specific selection rules is provided by the harmonic oscillator. The solution of this problem in quantum mechanics,... 

The model fundamental to all analyses of vibrational motion requires that the atoms in the system oscillate with small amplitude about some defined set of equilibrium positions. The Hamiltonian describing this motion is customarily taken to be quadratic in the atomic displacements, hence in principle a set of normal modes can be found in terms of these normal modes both the kinetic energy and the potential energy of the system are diagonal. The interaction of the system with electromagnetic radiation, i.e. excitation of specific normal modes of vibration, is then governed by selection rules which depend on features of the microscopic symmetry. It is well known that this model can be worked out in detail for small molecules and for crystalline solids. In some very favorable simple cases the effects of anharmonicity can be accounted for, provided they are not too large. 

The general form of the energy of the harmonic oscillator indicates that the vibrational energy levels are equally spaced. Due to the vector character of the dipole transition operator, the transition between vibronic energy levels is allowed only if the following selection rule is satisfied ... 

When exposed to electromagnetic radiation of the appropriate energy, typically in the infrared, a molecule can interact with the radiation and absorb it, exciting the molecule into the next higher vibrational energy level. For the ideal harmonic oscillator, the selection rules are Av = +1 that is, the vibrational energy can only change by one quantum at a time. However, for anharmonic oscillators, weaker overtone transitions due to Av = +2, + 3, etc. may also be observed because of their nonideal behavior. For polyatomic molecules with more than one fundamental vibration, e.g., as seen in Fig. 3.1a for the water molecule, both overtones and... 

The selection rules for the QM harmonic oscillator pennit transitions only for An = 1 (see Section 14.5). As Eq. (9.47) indicates diat the energy separation between any two adjacent levels is always hm, the predicted frequency for die = 0 to n = 1 absorption (or indeed any allowed absorption) is simply v = o). So, in order to predict die stretching frequency within the harmonic oscillator equation, all diat is needed is the second derivative of the energy with respect to bond stretching computed at die equilibrium geometry, i.e., k. The importance of k has led to considerable effort to derive analytical expressions for second derivatives, and they are now available for HF, MP2, DFT, QCISD, CCSD, MCSCF and select other levels of theory, although they can be quite expensive at some of the more highly correlated levels of theoiy. 

The derivation above may be generalized to wave functions other than electronic ones. By evaluation of transition dipole matrix elements for rigid-rotor and harmonic-oscillator rotational and vibrational wave functions, respectively, one arrives at the well-known selection rules in those systems that absorptions and emissions can only occur to adjacent levels, as previously noted in Chapter 9. Of course, simplifications in the derivations lead to many forbidden transitions being observable in the laboratory as weakly allowed, both in the electronic case and in the rotational and vibrational cases. 

The strength or intensity of absorption is related to the dipole strength of transition D or square of the transition moment integral M m , and is pressed in terms of oscillator strength / or integrated molar extinction jfe Jv. A transition with /= 1, is known as totally allowed transition. But the transitions between all the electronic, vibrational or rotational states are not equally permitted. Some are forbidden which can become allowed under certain conditions and then appear as weak absorption bands. The rules which govern such transitions are known as selection rules. For atomic energy levels, these selection rules have been empirically obtained from a comparison between the number of lines theoretically... 

The observed oscillator strength for any given transition is seldom found to be unity. A certain degree of forbiddenness is introduced for each of the factors which cause deviation from the selection rules. The oscillator strength of a given transition can be conveniently expressed as the product of factors which reduce the value from that of a completely allowed transition ... 

An alternative but not so general selection rule (it is restricted to the harmonic oscillator approximation) is that jVoI> / v5i dr is zero if dfiJdQ (evaluated for the equilibrium nuclear configuration) is zero, i.e. if there is no linear dependence of the dipole moment on the normal coordinate Q . 

A rotation of the H2 molecule through 180° creates an identical electric field. In other words, for every full rotation of a H2 molecule, the dipole induced in the collisional partner X oscillates twice through the full cycle. Quadrupole induced lines occur, therefore, at twice the (classical) rotation frequencies, or with selection rules J — J + 2, like rotational Raman lines of linear molecules. Orientational transitions (J — J AM 0) occur at zero frequency and make up the translational line. Besides multipole induction of the lowest-order multipole moments consistent with... 

What are the electric-dipole selection rules for a three-dimensional harmonic oscillator exposed to isotropic radiation ... 

ESR transitions are due to the interaction of the electron s spin magnetic moment fis with the oscillating field of the incident microwave radiation. The experimental setup is such that B, is perpendicular to B0, so that the selection rules are determined by the integral... 

Let r and be the irreducible representations to which the vibrational wave functions in (9.189) belong. According to the italicized statement following (9.187), the integral (9.189) vanishes unless T+<8>riratls contains T, . This is the basic IR selection rule. (Note that its deduction does not involve the harmonic-oscillator approximation or the approximation of... 

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