Potential barriers, tunneling splittings, and the predicted J=1←0 spectrum of CH+5

It has been established from earlier ab initio calculations that in its equilibrium configuration the CH+5 molecular ion consists of an H2 moiety bound to the apex of a pyramidal CH+3 group; the H2 group is approximately perpendicular to the C3 axis of the CH+3 group, and the binding energy is about 15000 cm−1. Two internal motions, the torsion and the flip, provide connections with low barriers between all 120 symmetrically equivalent minima on the potential energy surface so that all proton permutations are feasible. We present the results of new high level ab initio calculations of the parts of the potential energy surface associated with these two motions, and in particular we determine the continually optimized structure, and associated electronic energy, for the CH+5 molecular ion as it undergoes the flip motion. For the flip motion we numerically integrate the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation for the tunneling to determine the splitting. Since this splitting is small (1.4 cm−1) we can incorporate it into a 120×120 matrix treatment of the simultaneous torsion-flip dynamics to determine the energy level splitting pattern in the J=0 and 1 states, in the approximation of neglecting other tunneling pathways, and we calculate the positions of the lines in the J=1←0 millimeter wave spectrum.