HF...CL2 - BENDING DYNAMICS OF AN ANTIHYDROGEN-BONDED VAN-DER-WAALS DIMER

The PI-bending fundamental of the HF...Cl2 complex has been observed a t high resolution near 33 cm-1, yielding a vibrational energy separati on and rotational and nuclear quadrupole coupling constants. From thes e, estimates of the van der Waals stretching and SIGMA-bending frequen cies are made, and a quartic-quadratic potential is fit to the data, w ith a barrier of 48 cm-1 to the linear H-F...Cl-Cl conformation. HF... Cl2 is decidedly quasilinear, and the consequences of the flat theta(H F) bending coordinate are discussed as they relate to the interpretati on of recent photo-initiated bimolecular reactions HX...Y2 --> X + Y2 + XY + Y.