Knowledge Bank

We have begun a systematic study of rotation-tunneling spectra of dimers containing water and small gas molecules using both microwave (1) and FIR laser sideband (2) techniques. Our ultimate goal for these studies is to produce accurate potential energy surfaces (PES's) which will be usefull for predicting properties of dissolved gases in water and water ices. Although we are currently a long way from having a complete and accurate PES for any of our dimers, water tunneling splittings have been measured for a number of different dimers. In this talk we will compare these water tunneling splittings and discuss the PES's for the tunneling coordinate. We will also discuss improvements made in the past year to both our microwave and laser sideband spectrometers.