Effect of heavy hydrogen isotopes on the vibrational line shape for supercritical water through rotational couplings

The rotational couplings, which determine the infrared spectral line shape in the low-density supercritical water, were analyzed as functions of the density and the temperature by applying molecular dynamics simulation to a flexible water model, SPC∕Fw and by varying the moment of inertia of the water through substitution for the H atom in H2O by heavy hydrogen isotopes. The differences in the frequency and the relative intensity between the sharp center peak and the rotational broad side-bands were analyzed for the O-H, O-D, and O-T stretch spectra. The frequency differences between the sharp center peak and the rotational broad side-bands are linearly correlated with the inverse of the moment of inertia of the isotope-substituted water species. The intensity of the sharp peak is associated with the long-time component of the reorientational time correlation function for the stretching bond vector. At 400 °C, where a substantial amount of hydrogen bonds are dynamically persisting, an intensity decrease in the rotational broad side-bands was observed with increasing density from 0.01 to 0.40 g cm(-3), respectively, corresponding to 0.56 and 22.2 M (=mol dm(-3)), orders of magnitude higher than the ideal gas densities. This arises from the decrease in the correlation time of the angular velocity and the rotational couplings due to an increase in the hydrogen-bonding perturbation. The intensity decrease of the rotational side-bands with increasing density is more significant for the water isotopes with heavier hydrogens. At a high temperature of 1200 °C, the rotational side-bands at 0.01 to 0.05 g cm(-3) were more distinct than those at 400 °C, and even at a medium density of 0.40 g cm(-3) a significant signal broadening due to the rotational couplings was clearly observed because of the accelerated rotational momentum. The vibrational spectrum cannot be decomposed into definite chemical clusters for the thermodynamic and kinetic analysis because of the dynamic origin.