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Science 26 July 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5581, pp. 587 - 590
DOI: 10.1126/science.1073298
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Reports

Delocalization of Protons in Liquid Water

H. J. Bakker,* H.-K. Nienhuysdagger

We find that the vibrational potential of the O-H stretch vibrations of liquid water shows extreme anharmonicity that arises from the O-H ··· O hydrogen bond interaction. We observe that already in the second excited state of the O-H stretch vibration, the hydrogen atom becomes delocalized between the oxygen atoms of two neighboring water molecules. The energy required for this delocalization is unexpectedly low and corresponds to less than 20% of the dissociation energy of the O-H bond of the water molecule in the gas phase.

FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics, Kruislaan 407, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, Netherlands.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bakker{at}amolf.nl

dagger    Present address: Department of Chemical Physics, Lund University, Box 124, 221 00 Lund, Sweden.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Spectroscopic Determination of the OH- Solvation Shell in the OH-{middle dot}(H2O)n Clusters.
W. H. Robertson, E. G. Diken, E. A. Price, J.-W. Shin, and M. A. Johnson (2003)
Science 299, 1367-1372
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)