Knowledge Bank

Values of the electric dipole moment for the van der Waals complexes of carbonyl sulfide with krypton, argon and ncon were determined from Stark-effect measurements in a cavity Fourier-transform microwave spectrometer. The dipole moment components are; $Ne-OCS$, $|\mu a|=0.3294(11)$ D, $|\mu b|=0.6224(35)$ D; Ar-OCS, $|\mu a|=0.2094(10)$ D, $|\mu b|=0.6573(23)$ D; Kr-OCS, $|\mu a|=0.1719(18)$ D and $|\mu b|=0.6746(10)D$. The observed values were interpreted using ab initio theoretical calculations of the induced dipole moment of the rare gas component in the complex. In addition, some simple analytical models -- based on the expansion of the OCS multipole moments -- were also tested to rationalize the observed dipole moments. An attempt to assess the extent of zero- point vibrational effects in the harmonic oscillator limit will also be reported.