VARIATIONAL CALCULATION OF VIBRATIONAL ENERGIES OF TRIATOMIC-MOLECULES USING SCF OPTIMIZED MODES

A self-consistent field optimization of the vibrational coordinates for nonlinear triatomic molecules is presented. The optimal coordinates are obtained by making a three-dimensional rotational transformation of the normal modes and determining the rotation angles as those for which the SCF energy is stationary. The utility of the optimized coordinates in full variational calculations of vibrational energies is studied for the molecules of H2O, O3, H2D+, H2T+, and D2T+. For H2O and O3, the optimization procedure leads to the local mode representation. It is shown that the use of the optimal coordinates in variational calculations allows a large reduction of the dimension of the Hamiltonian matrix to be diagonalized in order to reach convergence.