On the Tunneling Properties of non-Planar Molecules in a Gas Medium

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new formula to analyze tunneling in non-planar molecules within a gas medium, explaining phenomena like inversion line shifts and tunneling destruction, validated against existing data.

Contribution

It presents a simple, general, and accurate formula for tunneling analysis in non-planar molecules in gases, applicable to various thermodynamic conditions.

Findings

The formula accurately predicts the zero-frequency shift of ammonia's inversion line.

It explains the loss of coherent tunneling in D2S2 molecules in helium gas.

Results align well with previous theoretical and experimental data.

Abstract

We propose a simple, general, and accurate formula for analyzing the tunneling between classical configurations of a non-planar molecule in a gas medium, as a function of the thermodynamic parameters of the gas. We apply it to two interesting cases: i) The shift to zero frequency of the inversion line of ammonia, upon increase of the pressure of the gas; ii) The destruction of the coherent tunneling of D2S2 molecules in a gas of He. In both cases, we compare our analysis with previous theoretical and experimental results.