Rotational-Vibrational Spectrum of a Diatomic Molecule

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Within the harmonic and rigid rotor approximations, the rotational-vibrational energy levels (in wavenumbers) of a diatomic molecule are given by , where
,
are the vibrational and rotational quantum numbers, respectively,
is the harmonic vibrational constant, and
is the rotational constant. The right panel shows the ground and first excited vibrational states, labeled
and
, respectively, with their associated manifolds of rotational states labeled
and
. Allowed transitions must obey the selection rules
,
. The left graphic shows transitions where
,
(referred to as the
-branch and shown in blue), and
(referred to as the
-branch and shown in red). The arrows shown on the right indicate a transition between a pair of energy levels. The corresponding transition frequency is highlighted in the spectrum on the left.
Contributed by: Porscha McRobbie and Eitan Geva (March 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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"Rotational-Vibrational Spectrum of a Diatomic Molecule"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/RotationalVibrationalSpectrumOfADiatomicMolecule/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: March 7 2011