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Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Rotational quenching of monodeuterated water by hydrogen molecules
Laurent Wiesenfeld1, Yohann Scribano, Alexandre Faure
1UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS-INSU, Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble UMR 5274, Grenoble, F-38041, France.
Abstract:
Cross sections and rate coefficients for low lying rotational transitions in HDO induced by para and ortho-H(2) collisions are presented for the first time. Calculations have been performed at the close-coupling and coupled-states levels with the deuterated variant of the H(2)O-H(2) interaction potential of Valiron et al. [J. Chem. Phys., 2008, 129, 134306]. Rate coefficients are presented for temperatures between 5 and 100 K and are compared to the corresponding rates for H(2)O and D(2)O. Significant differences caused by the isotopic substitution, in particular the C(2v) symmetry breaking, are observed. Finally, our rates are found to be significantly larger (by up to three orders of magnitude at 50 K) than the corresponding HDO-He rates and should lead to a thorough re-estimation of the abundance of interstellar HDO.
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