Highly excited vibration-rotation states of floppy triatomic molecules by a localized representation method: The HCN/HNC molecule

All rovibrational levels of HCN/HNC up to ∼16 000 cm^-1, relative to the HCN minimum, for J=0, 1, 2, have been calculated accurately. All internal degrees of freedom are included in these calculations, performed on the realistic, empirical potential surface by Murrel et al. [J. Mol. Spectrosc. 93, 307 (1982)]. Body-fixed mass-scaled Jacobi coordinates are employed, together with the discrete variable representation of the large amplitude motion (LAM) angular coordinate, and a 2-D distributed Gaussian basis for the radial degrees of freedom. The successive diagonalization-truncation procedure results in a compact matrix representation of the full rovibrational Hamiltonian, allowing accurate and efficient determination of a large number (>350 for J=2, p=0 case) of highly excited LAM rovibrational states of HCN/HNC. This approach is suitable for a broad class of floppy, isomerizing triatomic molecules and van der Waals complexes. In addition to energy levels and wave functions, expectation values of Jacobi coordinates, <R>, <r>, and <θ>, are calculated for most states. The majority of calculated J=1,2 levels lie above the top of the isomerization barrier, and are delocalized to a varying degree over both local minima. Rotation appears to lower the energy threshold for extensive delocalization; for the states with J=1, or 2, it is ∼460-480 cm^-1 below that for J=0 states. Moreover, increasing rotational excitation affects significantly the degree of localization of a given state.