Hydrogen bond dynamics in liquid water: Ab initio molecular dynamics simulation

The effect of intermolecular interaction on the distribution of the harmonic vibrational frequencies of water molecules was investigated through ab initio molecular dynamics simulations based on the Born-Oppenheimer approach. For single water, the effect of the dynamics of the oxygen atom in single water and the simulation time step on the frequency distribution were examined. The distributions of the OH stretching and HOH bending vibrational frequencies of liquid water were compared to those of single water. The probability distributions of the change in OH bond length and the lifetime of the dangling OH bond were also obtained. The distribution of the frequencies was strongly affected by the long lifetime of the dangling OH bond, resulting in the formation of hydrogen bonds between water molecules.