The ionosphere is an important layer in the Earth’s atmosphere that allows radio communication to distant locations due to electrically charged atoms and molecules that are constantly bombarded by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Most importantly for our study, SiOH+ and its other isomeric partner, HSiO+, are likely among the molecular species responsible for radio proliferation. Studies have been made to provide the existence of these molecules in the gas phase by the use of neutralization-reionization mass spectrometry (NRMS). It has also been proposed that due to distribution of the ground state, Si+ reacts with H2O in the ionosphere to create SiOH+. Our computations of SiOH+ make use of quartic force fields and high-level coupled-cluster theory to derive the rovibrational spectroscopic constants for SiOH+ and HSiO+. These computations provide data in order to examine the possibility that these two cations may exist in the ionosphere or even in the larger interstellar medium (ISM), the region between stars. Astronomical observations and laboratory experiments of SiOH+ and HSiO+ may further advance our understanding of the ISM and ionosphere but only if reference data is available. This work serves to provide this data for comparison. Additionally, other third row atom-including (Si, P, S) hydroxide anions, cations, and neutrals data are also reported.

Rovibrational analysis of SiOH+, HSiO+, and other third row atom hydroxides

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.