Variational Vibrational States of Methanol (12D)

Full-dimensional (12D) vibrational states of the methanol molecule (CH₃OH) have been computed using the GENIUSH-Smolyak approach and the potential energy surface from Qu and Bowman (2013). All vibrational energies are converged better than 0.5 cm^-1 with respect to the basis and grid size up to the first overtone of the CO stretch, ca. 2000 cm^-1 beyond the zero-point vibrational energy. About 70 torsion-vibration states are reported and assigned. The computed vibrational energies agree with the available experimental data within less than a few cm^-1 in most cases, which confirms the good accuracy of the potential energy surface. The computations are carried out using curvilinear normal coordinates with the option of path-following coefficients, which minimize the coupling of the small- and large-amplitude motions. It is important to ensure tight numerical fulfillment of the C_3v(M) molecular symmetry for every geometry and coefficient set used to define the curvilinear normal coordinates along the torsional coordinate to obtain a faithful description of degeneracy in this floppy system. The reported values may provide a computational reference for fundamental spectroscopy, astrochemistry, and for the search of the proton-to-electron mass ratio variation using the methanol molecule.