Biomedical subjects

Juana Vázquez

Publications and source records attributed to Juana Vázquez.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Infrared overtone spectroscopy and vibrational analysis of a Fermi resonance in nitric acid: Experiment and theory.

High resolution infrared spectra of nitric acid have been recorded in the first OH overtone region under jet-cooled conditions using a sequential IR-UV excitation method. Vibrational bands observed at 6933.39(3), 6938.75(4), and 6951.985(3) cm(-1) (origins) with relative intensities of 0.42(1), 0.38(1), and 0.20(1) are attributed to strongly mixed states involved in a Fermi resonance. A vibrational deperturbation analysis suggests that the optically bright OH overtone stretch (2nu1) at 6939.2(1) cm(-1) is coupled directly to the nu1 + 2nu2 state at 6946.4(1) cm(-1) and indirectly to the 3nu2 + nu3 + nu7 state at 6938.5(1) cm(-1). Both the identity of the zero-order states and the indirect coupling scheme are deduced from complementary CCSD(T) calculations in conjunction with second-order vibrational perturbation theory. The deperturbation analysis also yields the experimental coupling between 2nu1 and nu1 + 2nu2 of -6.9(1) cm(-1), and that between the two dark states of +5.0(1) cm(-1). The calculated vibrational energies and couplings are in near quantitative agreement with experimentally derived values except for a predicted twofold stronger coupling of 2nu1 to nu1 + 2nu2. Weaker coupling of the strongly mixed states to a dense background of vibrational states via intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution is evident from the experimental linewidths of 0.08 and 0.25 cm(-1) for the higher energy and two overlapping lower energy bands, respectively. A comprehensive rotational analysis of the higher energy band yields spectroscopic parameters and the direction of the OH overtone transition dipole moment.

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PubMed2006

High-accuracy extrapolated ab initio thermochemistry. II. Minor improvements to the protocol and a vital simplification.

The recently developed high-accuracy extrapolated ab initio thermochemistry method for theoretical thermochemistry, which is intimately related to other high-precision protocols such as the Weizmann-3 and focal-point approaches, is revisited. Some minor improvements in theoretical rigor are introduced which do not lead to any significant additional computational overhead, but are shown to have a negligible overall effect on the accuracy. In addition, the method is extended to completely treat electron correlation effects up to pentuple excitations. The use of an approximate treatment of quadruple and pentuple excitations is suggested; the former as a pragmatic approximation for standard cases and the latter when extremely high accuracy is required. For a test suite of molecules that have rather precisely known enthalpies of formation {as taken from the active thermochemical tables of Ruscic and co-workers [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, edited by M. Parashar (Springer, Berlin, 2002), Vol. 2536, pp. 25-38; J. Phys. Chem. A 108, 9979 (2004)]}, the largest deviations between theory and experiment are 0.52, -0.70, and 0.51 kJ mol(-1) for the latter three methods, respectively. Some perspective is provided on this level of accuracy, and sources of remaining systematic deficiencies in the approaches are discussed.

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PubMed2004

HEAT: High accuracy extrapolated ab initio thermochemistry.

A theoretical model chemistry designed to achieve high accuracy for enthalpies of formation of atoms and small molecules is described. This approach is entirely independent of experimental data and contains no empirical scaling factors, and includes a treatment of electron correlation up to the full coupled-cluster singles, doubles, triples and quadruples approach. Energies are further augmented by anharmonic zero-point vibrational energies, a scalar relativistic correction, first-order spin-orbit coupling, and the diagonal Born-Oppenheimer correction. The accuracy of the approach is assessed by several means. Enthalpies of formation (at 0 K) calculated for a test suite of 31 atoms and molecules via direct calculation of the corresponding elemental formation reactions are within 1 kJ mol(-1) to experiment in all cases. Given the quite different bonding environments in the product and reactant sides of these reactions, the results strongly indicate that even greater accuracy may be expected in reactions that preserve (either exactly or approximately) the number and types of chemical bonds.

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PubMed2004

Intermolecular charge transfer and hydrogen bonding in solid furan.

The calculated structures of furan as a monomer, a dimer that was isolated from the crystal structure, and the full crystal structure have been thoroughly investigated by a combination of density functional theory (DFT) calculations and inelastic neutron scattering (INS) measurements. To improve our understanding of the nature and magnitude of the intermolecular interactions in the solid, the atoms in molecules (AIM) theory has been applied to the dimer and a cluster of eight monomers. After a careful topological study of the theoretical charge density and of its Laplacian, we have established the existence of C-H...pi, C-H...O, and H...H interactions between adjacent molecules in solid furan. The electron distribution has also been analyzed by performing natural bond orbital (NBO) calculations for the monomer and a H-bonded dimer. When the hydrogen bond is established between two adjacent furan rings, some electron charge is transferred from the pi electronic system of one furan ring to the other molecule in the dimer. This result provides a model of the interaction between end groups of neighboring chains of polyfuran and could be applicable to other conjugated polymers where the pi system is responsible for their conducting properties. To determine how the intermolecular bonds in the solid affect the vibrational dynamics in the periodic system, INS data were analyzed by performing molecular and periodic density functional calculations. Reasonable agreement is achieved, although we note that the poorest agreement is for modes involving hydrogen atoms.

Furans↗

PubMed2004

Triplet instability in doublet systems.

Some problems associated with unrestricted wave functions for open-shell molecules are discussed in the contest of coupled-cluster calculation of molecular properties. Particular attention is given to a phenomenon akin to the "triplet instability" of closed-shell molecules, where the approximate spin pairing of a nominal pair of electrons in the unrestricted Hartree-Fock wave function begins to give way to significant spin polarization. This problem-which gives rise to pronounced spin contamination-is discussed from the point of view of orbital instability and occupation numbers of the charge density matrix. The onset, rather than the magnitude of the spin contamination is analyzed in detail for diatomics, especially heteronuclear cases where the transition to significant spin contamination does not occur discontinuously. It is shown that the qualitative description of this phenomenon satisfactorily explains anomalous results for NO and PO, although the magnitude of spin contamination in these molecules is significantly less than in other cases where anomalous results are not observed. It appears that calculations of equilibrium molecular properties using coupled-cluster methods based on unrestricted Hartree-Fock reference should be monitored carefully for any molecule containing a multiple bond, especially when the bonded pair of atoms appear in different rows of the periodic table.

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