Knowledge Bank

Because of the small moments of inertia of $T2O$ and HTO many of the transitions necessary to characterize their rotational spectra lie in the shorter millimeter and sumbillimeter regions of the spectrum. Among these transitions are included a number of low J transitions which are important for a proper characterization of the rotation-distortion spectrum. A millimeter and submillimeter spectrometer which we have previously described has been used to measure a large number of transitions of these isotopes in the 100 - 600 GHz region. These measurements make possible analyses, the results of which are independent of the details of both the Hamiltonian and of the particular transitions included in the analyses. Measurements which are presently being made will further refine these results. Work at Duke University is supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant GP-34590.