Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 1, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Quantum tunnelling pathways of the water pentamer
Marko T Cvitaš1, Jeremy O Richardson2
1Department of Physical Chemistry, Ruđer Bošković Institute, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. mcvitas@irb.com.
Abstract:
We apply the semiclassical instanton method to calculate all feasible tunnelling pathways in the water pentamer. Similarly to the water trimer, there are labile flip dynamics as well as a number of different bifurcation pathways coupled to flips. In contrast to the trimer, the puckering motion of the oxygen ring makes the ring-polymer instanton approach difficult to converge, a problem which is resolved by using a recently developed time-independent formalism of the method. We use the results to predict the complete ground-state tunnelling splitting pattern of 320 states, which should help in the continuing effort to assign the experimental spectrum. A comparison between the rearrangement pathways in the water trimer and pentamer sheds light on the many-body cooperative effects of hydrogen bonding which are important for a full understanding of the liquid state.
Related Concept Videos
Aquaporins
ATP Synthase: Structure
ATP Synthase: Mechanism
Multi-pass Transmembrane Proteins and β-barrels
α-Helix containing multi-pass transmembrane proteins
Multi-pass transmembrane proteins such as...
Porin Insertion in the Outer Mitochondrial Membrane
Three models describe the assembly of porins by the SAM complex and their insertion into the outer membrane. Model 1 suggests that porins are assembled outside the SAM channel as the...
Structure of Porins

