State mixing and predissociation in the c <-- a band system of singlet methylene studied by optical-optical double resonance

In an attempt to characterize the state interactions near the dissociation energy of singlet methylene, the near ultraviolet band system of singlet methylene has been studied using a laser optical-optical double resonance scheme. Spectra terminating in several, previously unobserved, higher bending levels of the c(1)A1 state have been detected. The highest energy band has simple rotational structure with lifetime broadened lines and is observed near 32300 cm(-1), which is 500 cm(-1) above the current best estimate for the singlet bond dissociation energy to CH((2)Pi) + H((2)S). Two lower energy bands exhibit a proliferation of rotationally-labeled double-resonance lines in the vicinity of the bright c(0,12,0) and c(0,13,0) bending levels, indicating that at least 7 and 9 strongly coupled vibronic states participate in each of these bands, respectively. The additional states may be associated with kinks in the adiabatic c state potential along the asymmetric stretching coordinate associated with interactions among c(1)A', a(1)A', and 3(1)A' states, as described by Ostojic (J. Mol. Spectrosc. 2002, 212, 130). There is no evidence for lifetime broadening below the singlet dissociation energy; hence we conclude that coupling of spectroscopically accessible singlet CH2 levels to the triplet manifold is very small.